Jeremiah 31

¹“At that time,” declares Yahweh,[#Literally “a declaration of”]

“I will be the God of all the clans of Israel,

and they will be to me a people.”

²Thus says Yahweh:

“The people of the survivors of the sword found grace in the desert;

³From afar Yahweh appeared to me, saying,

“I have loved you with an everlasting love.

⁴I will again build you,

You will again adorn yourself with your tambourines,

⁵You will again plant vineyards on the mountains of Samaria.

⁶For there will be a day when watchmen will call in the hill country of Ephraim,

⁷For thus says Yahweh,

“Sing for joy for Jacob with gladness,

Proclaim, praise, and say,

⁸Look, I am going to bring them from the land of the north,

Among them the blind, and the lame,

together, a great assembly,

⁹With weeping they will come,

I will let them walk by streams of water in a straight path.

for I have become to Israel a father,

¹⁰Hear the word of Yahweh, O nations,

“The scatterer of Israel will gather him,

¹¹For Yahweh has ransomed Jacob,

¹²And they will come,

over the grain, and over the wine, and over the olive oil,

And their life will become like a well-watered garden,

¹³“Then the young woman will rejoice in the dancing in a ring,

And I will turn their mourning to jubilation,

¹⁴And I will saturate the appetite of the priests with fatness,

¹⁵Thus says Yahweh,

“A voice is heard in Ramah,

Rachel is weeping for her children;

¹⁶Thus says Yahweh:

“Restrain your voice from weeping,

for there is a reward for your work,” declares Yahweh,

¹⁷And there is hope for your future,” declares Yahweh,[#Literally “a declaration of”]

¹⁸Indeed I heard Ephraim pitying themselves,

Bring me back and let me return,

¹⁹For after my turning back I repented,

I was ashamed and also humiliated,

²⁰Is Ephraim my dear son,

For as often as I have earnestly spoken against him,

Therefore my bowels are turbulent for him,

²¹“Set up for yourself road markers,

set your mind to the main road,

Return, O virgin of Israel,

²²How long will you waver, O unfaithful daughter?[#Literally “Until when”]

For Yahweh has created a new thing on the earth,

²³Thus says Yahweh of hosts, the God of Israel, “They will again say these words in the land of Judah and in its towns at my restoring their fortunes,[#Hebrew “word”; #Hebrew “fortune”]

‘Yahweh bless you, O settlement of righteousness,

²⁴And Judah and all of its towns together will live in it,

²⁵For I will saturate the thirst of the weary,

²⁶At this I awoke and looked,

The New Covenant

²⁷“Look, the days are coming,” declares Yahweh, “and I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of humankind, and with the seed of animals.[#Literally “a declaration of”; #Hebrew “animal”]

²⁸And then as I have watched over them to pull up, and to tear down, and to annihilate, and to destroy, and to do evil, so I will watch over them to build and to plant,” declares Yahweh.[#Literally “And it will happen”; #Literally “a declaration of”]

²⁹“In those days they will say no longer, ‘Parents have eaten unripe fruit, and the teeth of the children are set on edge.’[#Literally “Fathers”; #Literally “have become blunt”]

³⁰But each will die because of his iniquity, everyone who eats the unripe fruit, their teeth will be set on edge.[#Literally “But if”; #Literally “all of the humankind”; #Literally “become blunt”]

³¹Look, the days are coming,” declares Yahweh, “and I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah,[#Literally “a declaration of”; #Literally “cut”]

³²not like the covenant that I made with their ancestors on the day of my grasping them by their hand, bringing them out from the land of Egypt, my covenant that they themselves broke, though I myself was a master over them,” declares Yahweh.[#Literally “cut”; #Or “fathers”; #Here the direct object is supplied from context in the English translation; #Literally “a declaration of”]

³³“But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” declares Yahweh: “I will put my law in their inward parts and on their hearts I will write it, and I will be to them God, and they themselves will be to me people.[#Literally “cut”; #Literally “a declaration of”; #Hebrew “heart”]

³⁴And they will no longer teach each one his neighbor, or each one his brother, saying, ‘Know Yahweh,’ for all of them will know me, from their smallest and up to their greatest,” declares Yahweh, “for I will forgive their iniquity and their sin I will no longer remember.”[#Literally “to say”; #Literally “small”; #Literally “great”; #Literally “a declaration of”]

³⁵Thus says Yahweh, who gives the sun for light by day, the regulations of the moon and the stars for light by night, who stirs up the sea and its waves roar—Yahweh of hosts is his name.

³⁶“If these rules would cease from before me,” declares Yahweh, “also the offspring of Israel would cease from being a nation before me forever.”[#Literally “to the face of me”; #Literally “a declaration of”; #Literally “to the face of me”; #Literally “all the days”]

³⁷Thus says Yahweh, “If the heavens above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth below can be explored, also I will reject all the offspring of Israel because of all that they have done,” declares Yahweh.[#Literally “a declaration of”]

³⁸“Look, days are coming,” declares Yahweh, “and the city will be rebuilt for Yahweh, from the Tower of Hananel to the Corner Gate.[#Literally “a declaration of”]

³⁹And the measuring line will still go out immediately in front of it to the hill of Gareb, and it will turn to Goah.[#Literally “the string of the measurement”]

⁴⁰And the whole of the valley of the corpses, and the ashes, and all the cultivated fields up to the wadi of Kidron, up to the corner of the Gate of the Horses toward the east will be holy to Yahweh. It will not be uprooted, and it will not be overthrown again forever.”[#Literally “to eternity”]