Jeremiah 31
31
The New Israel
1The Lord says, “At that time I will be God of all Israel’s family groups, and they will be my people.”
2This is what the Lord says:
“The people who were not killed by the enemy’s sword
found help in the desert.
I came to give rest to Israel.”
3And from far away the Lord appeared to his people and said,
“I love you people
with a love that will last forever.
That is why I have continued
showing you kindness.
4People of Israel, I will build you up again,
and you will be rebuilt.
You will pick up your tambourines again
and dance with those who are joyful.
5You will plant vineyards again
on the hills around Samaria.
The farmers will plant them
and enjoy their fruit.
6There will be a time when watchmen in the mountains of Ephraim shout this message:
‘Come, let’s go up to Jerusalem to worship the Lord our God!’ ”
7This is what the Lord says:
“Be happy and sing for the people of Jacob.
Shout for Israel, the greatest of the nations.
Sing your praises and shout this:
‘Lord, save your people,
those who are left alive from the nation of Israel!’
8Look, I will soon bring Israel from the country in the north,
and I will gather them from the faraway places on earth.
Some of the people are blind and crippled.
Some of the women are pregnant, and some are ready to give birth.
A great many people will come back.
9They will be crying as they come,
but they will pray as I bring them back.
I will lead those people by streams of water
on an even road where they will not stumble.
I am Israel’s father,
and Israel is my firstborn son.
10“Nations, listen to the message from the Lord.
Tell this message in the faraway lands by the sea:
‘The one who scattered the people of Israel will bring them back,
and he will watch over his people like a shepherd.’
11The Lord will pay for the people of Jacob
and will buy them back from people stronger than they were.
12The people of Israel will come to the high points of Jerusalem
and shout for joy.
Their faces will shine with happiness about all the good things from the Lord:
the grain, new wine, oil, young sheep, and young cows.
They will be like a garden that has plenty of water,
and they will not be troubled anymore.
13Then young women of Israel will be happy and dance,
the young men and old men also.
I will change their sadness into happiness;
I will give them comfort and joy instead of sadness.
14The priests will have more than enough sacrifices,
and my people will be filled with the good things I give them!” says the Lord.
15This is what the Lord says:
“A voice was heard in Ramah
of painful crying and deep sadness:
Rachel crying for her children.
She refused to be comforted,
because her children are dead!”
16But this is what the Lord says:
“Stop crying;
don’t let your eyes fill with tears.
You will be rewarded for your work!” says the Lord.
“The people will return from their enemy’s land.
17So there is hope for you in the future,” says the Lord.
“Your children will return to their own land.
18“I have heard Israel moaning:
‘Lord, you punished me, and I have learned my lesson.
I was like a calf that had never been trained.
Take me back so that I may come back.
You truly are the Lord my God.
19Lord, after I wandered away from you,
I changed my heart and life.
After I understood,
I beat my breast with sorrow.
I was ashamed and disgraced,
because I suffered for the foolish things I did when I was young.’
20“You know that Israel is my dear son,
The child I love.
Yes, I often speak against Israel,
but I still remember him.
I love him very much,
and I want to comfort him,” says the Lord.
21“People of Israel, fix the road signs.
Put up signs to show you the way home.
Watch the road.
Pay attention to the road on which you travel.
People of Israel, come home,
come back to your towns.
22You are an unfaithful daughter.
How long will you wander before you come home?
The Lord has made something new happen in the land:
A woman will go seeking a man.”
23The Lord All-Powerful, the God of Israel, says: “I will again do good things for the people of Judah. At that time the people in the land of Judah and its towns will again use these words: ‘May the Lord bless you, home of what is good, holy mountain.’ 24People in all the towns of Judah will live together in peace. Farmers and those who move around with their flocks will live together in peace. 25I will give rest and strength to those who are weak and tired.”
26After hearing that, I, Jeremiah, woke up and looked around. My sleep had been very pleasant.
27The Lord says, “The time is coming when I will help the families of Israel and Judah and their children and animals to grow. 28In the past I watched over Israel and Judah, to pull them up and tear them down, to destroy them and bring them disaster. But now I will watch over them to build them up and make them strong,” says the Lord.
29“At that time people will no longer say:
‘The parents have eaten sour grapes,
and that caused the children to grind their teeth from the sour taste.’
30Instead, each person will die for his own sin; the person who eats sour grapes will grind his own teeth.
The New Agreement
31“Look, the time is coming,” says the Lord,
“when I will make a new agreement
with the people of Israel
and the people of Judah.
32It will not be like the agreement
I made with their ancestors
when I took them by the hand
to bring them out of Egypt.
I was a husband to them,
but they broke that agreement,” says the Lord.
33“This is the agreement I will make
with the people of Israel at that time,” says the Lord:
“I will put my teachings in their minds
and write them on their hearts.
I will be their God,
and they will be my people.
34People will no longer have to teach their neighbors and relatives
to know the Lord,
because all people will know me,
from the least to the most important,” says the Lord.
“I will forgive them for the wicked things they did,
and I will not remember their sins anymore.”
The Lord Will Never Leave Israel
35The Lord makes the sun shine in the day
and the moon and stars to shine at night.
He stirs up the sea so that its waves crash on the shore.
The Lord All-Powerful is his name.
This is what the Lord says:
36“Only if these laws should ever fail,”
says the Lord,
“will Israel’s descendants ever stop
being a nation before me.”
37This is what the Lord says:
“Only if people can measure the sky above
and learn the secrets of the earth below,
will I reject all the descendants of Israel
because of what they have done,” says the Lord.
The New Jerusalem
38The Lord says, “The time is coming when Jerusalem will be rebuilt for me—everything from the Tower of Hananel to the Corner Gate. 39The measuring line will stretch from the Corner Gate straight to the hill of Gareb. Then it will turn to the place named Goah. 40The whole valley where dead bodies and ashes are thrown, and all the terraces out to the Kidron Valley on the east as far as the corner of the Horse Gate—all that area will be holy to the Lord. The city of Jerusalem will never again be torn down or destroyed.”
Currently Selected:
Jeremiah 31: NCV
Highlight
Share
Copy
![None](/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fimageproxy.youversionapi.com%2F58%2Fhttps%3A%2F%2Fweb-assets.youversion.com%2Fapp-icons%2Fen.png&w=128&q=75)
Want to have your highlights saved across all your devices? Sign up or sign in
The Holy Bible, New Century Version, Copyright © 2005 Thomas Nelson. All rights reserved.
Jeremiah 31
31
1At that time, saith the LORD, will I be the God of all the families of Israel, and they shall be my people. 2Thus saith the LORD, The people which were left of the sword found grace in the wilderness; even Israel, when I went to cause him to rest. 3The LORD appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee. 4Again will I build thee, and thou shalt be built, O virgin of Israel: again shalt thou be adorned with thy tabrets, and shalt go forth in the dances of them that make merry. 5Again shalt thou plant vineyards upon the mountains of Samaria: the planters shall plant, and shall enjoy the fruit thereof. 6For there shall be a day, that the watchmen upon the hills of Ephraim shall cry, Arise ye, and let us go up to Zion unto the LORD our God. 7For thus saith the LORD, Sing with gladness for Jacob, and shout for the chief of the nations: publish ye, praise ye, and say, O LORD, save thy people, the remnant of Israel. 8Behold, I will bring them from the north country, and gather them from the uttermost parts of the earth, and with them the blind and the lame, the woman with child and her that travaileth with child together: a great company shall they return hither. 9They shall come with weeping, and with supplications will I lead them: I will cause them to walk by rivers of waters, in a straight way wherein they shall not stumble: for I am a father to Israel, and Ephraim is my firstborn.
10Hear the word of the LORD, O ye nations, and declare it in the isles afar off; and say, He that scattered Israel will gather him, and keep him, as a shepherd doth his flock. 11For the LORD hath ransomed Jacob, and redeemed him from the hand of him that was stronger than he. 12And they shall come and sing in the height of Zion, and shall flow together unto the goodness of the LORD, to the corn, and to the wine, and to the oil, and to the young of the flock and of the herd: and their soul shall be as a watered garden; and they shall not sorrow any more at all. 13Then shall the virgin rejoice in the dance, and the young men and the old together: for I will turn their mourning into joy, and will comfort them, and make them rejoice from their sorrow. 14And I will satiate the soul of the priests with fatness, and my people shall be satisfied with my goodness, saith the LORD. 15Thus saith the LORD: A voice is heard in Ramah, lamentation, and bitter weeping, Rachel weeping for her children; she refuseth to be comforted for her children, because they are not. 16Thus saith the LORD: Refrain thy voice from weeping, and thine eyes from tears: for thy work shall be rewarded, saith the LORD; and they shall come again from the land of the enemy. 17And there is hope for thy latter end, saith the LORD; and thy children shall come again to their own border.
18I have surely heard Ephraim bemoaning himself thus, Thou hast chastised me, and I was chastised, as a calf unaccustomed to the yoke: turn thou me, and I shall be turned; for thou art the LORD my God. 19Surely after that I was turned, I repented; and after that I was instructed, I smote upon my thigh: I was ashamed, yea, even confounded, because I did bear the reproach of my youth. 20Is Ephraim my dear son? is he a pleasant child? for as often as I speak against him, I do earnestly remember him still: therefore my bowels are troubled for him; I will surely have mercy upon him, saith the LORD. 21Set thee up waymarks, make thee guide-posts: set thine heart toward the highway, even the way by which thou wentest: turn again, O virgin of Israel, turn again to these thy cities. 22How long wilt thou go hither and thither, O thou backsliding daughter? for the LORD hath created a new thing in the earth, A woman shall encompass a man. 23Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Yet again shall they use this speech in the land of Judah and in the cities thereof, when I shall bring again their captivity: The LORD bless thee, O habitation of justice, O mountain of holiness. 24And Judah and all the cities thereof shall dwell therein together; the husbandmen, and they that go about with flocks. 25For I have satiated the weary soul, and every sorrowful soul have I replenished. 26Upon this I awaked, and beheld; and my sleep was sweet unto me.
27Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of man, and with the seed of beast. 28And it shall come to pass, that like as I have watched over them to pluck up and to break down, and to overthrow and to destroy, and to afflict; so will I watch over them to build and to plant, saith the LORD. 29In those days they shall say no more, The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge. 30But every one shall die for his own iniquity: every man that eateth the sour grapes, his teeth shall be set on edge. 31Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: 32not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the LORD. 33But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the LORD; I will put my law in their inward parts, and in their heart will I write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people: 34and they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the LORD: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the LORD: for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin will I remember no more.
35Thus saith the LORD, which giveth the sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and of the stars for a light by night, which stirreth up the sea, that the waves thereof roar; the LORD of hosts is his name: 36If these ordinances depart from before me, saith the LORD, then the seed of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before me for ever. 37Thus saith the LORD: If heaven above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth searched out beneath, then will I also cast off all the seed of Israel for all that they have done, saith the LORD. 38Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that the city shall be built to the LORD from the tower of Hananel unto the gate of the corner. 39And the measuring line shall yet go out straight onward unto the hill Gareb, and shall turn about unto Goah. 40And the whole valley of the dead bodies, and of the ashes, and all the fields unto the brook Kidron, unto the corner of the horse gate toward the east, shall be holy unto the LORD; it shall not be plucked up, nor thrown down any more for ever.
Currently Selected:
:
Highlight
Share
Copy
![None](/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fimageproxy.youversionapi.com%2F58%2Fhttps%3A%2F%2Fweb-assets.youversion.com%2Fapp-icons%2Fen.png&w=128&q=75)
Want to have your highlights saved across all your devices? Sign up or sign in
historical text maintained by the British and Foreign Bible Society