The Bible

40 verses

Jeremiah Chapter 31

¹At that time, says ForeverOne, will I be the God of all the families of Israel, and they shall be my people.

²Thus says ForeverOne, The people who were left of the sword found favor in the wilderness; even Israel, when I went to cause him to rest.

³ForeverOne appeared of old to me, [saying], Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love: therefore with loving kindness have I drawn you.

⁴Again will I build you, and you shall be built, O virgin of Israel: again you shall be adorned with your tambourines, and shall go forth in the dances of those who make merry.

⁵Again you shall plant vineyards on the mountains of Samaria; the planters shall plant, and shall enjoy [its fruit].

⁶For there shall be a day, that the watchmen on the hills of Ephraim shall cry, Arise, and let us go up to Zion to ForeverOne our God.

⁷For thus says ForeverOne, Sing with gladness for Jacob, and shout for the chief of the nations: publish, praise, and say, ForeverOne, save your 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 who travails with child together: a great company shall they return here.

⁹They shall come with weeping; and with petitions will I lead them: I will cause them to walk by rivers of waters, in a straight way in which they shall not stumble; for I am a father to Israel, and Ephraim is my firstborn.

¹⁰Hear the word of ForeverOne, you nations, and declare it in the islands far away; and say, He who scattered Israel will gather him, and keep him, as shepherd does his flock.

¹¹For ForeverOne has ransomed Jacob, and redeemed him from the hand of him who was stronger than he.

¹²They shall come and sing in the height of Zion, and shall flow to the goodness of ForeverOne, to the grain, and to the new 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.

¹⁴I will satiate the soul of the priests with abundance, and my people shall be satisfied with my goodness, says ForeverOne.

¹⁵Thus says ForeverOne: A voice is heard in Ramah, lamentation, and bitter weeping, Rachel weeping for her children; she refuses to be comforted for her children, because they are no more.

¹⁶Thus says ForeverOne: Refrain your voice from weeping, and your eyes from tears; for your work shall be rewarded, says ForeverOne; and they shall return from the land of the enemy.

¹⁷There is hope for your latter end, says ForeverOne; and [your] children shall return to their own border.

¹⁸I have surely heard Ephraim bemoaning himself [thus], You have chastised me, and I was chastised, as a calf unaccustomed [to the yoke]: turn me, and I shall be turned; for you are ForeverOne my God.

¹⁹Surely after that I was turned, I repented; and after that I was instructed, I struck on my thigh: I was ashamed, yes, even confounded, because I bore the reproach of my youth.

²⁰Is Ephraim my dear son? is he a darling child? for as often as I speak against him, I do earnestly remember him still: therefore my heart yearns for him; I will surely have mercy on him, says ForeverOne.

²¹Set up road signs, make guideposts; set your heart toward the highway, even the way by which you went: turn again, virgin of Israel, turn again to these your cities.

²²How long will you go here and there, you backsliding daughter? for ForeverOne has created a new thing in the earth: a woman shall encompass a man.

²³Thus says ForeverOne of Armies, the God of Israel, Yet again shall they use this speech in the land of Judah and in its cities, when I shall bring again their captivity: ForeverOne bless you, habitation of righteousness, mountain of holiness.

²⁴Judah and all its cities shall dwell in it together, the farmers, and those who go about with flocks.

²⁵For I have satiated the weary soul, and every sorrowful soul have I replenished.

²⁶On this I awakened, and saw; and my sleep was sweet to me.

²⁷Behold, the days come, says ForeverOne, that I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the offspring of man, and with the offspring of animal.

²⁸As I have watched over them to pluck up and to break down and to overthrow and to destroy and to afflict, so I will watch over them to build and to plant, says ForeverOne.

²⁹In those days they shall say no more, The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge.

³⁰But everyone shall die for his own iniquity: every man who eats the sour grapes, his teeth shall be set on edge.

³¹Behold, the days come, says ForeverOne, 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 broke, although I was married to them, says ForeverOne.

³³But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says ForeverOne: 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 neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know ForeverOne; for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says ForeverOne: for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin will I remember no more.

³⁵Thus says ForeverOne, who gives the sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and of the stars for a light by night, who stirs up the sea, so that its waves roar; ForeverOne of Armies is his name: ³⁶If these ordinances depart from before me, says ForeverOne, then the offspring of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before me forever.

³⁷Thus says ForeverOne: If heaven above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth searched out beneath, then I will also reject all the offspring of Israel for all that they have done, says ForeverOne.

³⁸Behold, the days come, says ForeverOne, that the city shall be built to ForeverOne from the tower of Hananel to the gate of the corner.

³⁹The measuring line shall go out further straight onward to the hill Gareb, and shall turn about to Goah.

⁴⁰The whole valley of the dead bodies and of the ashes, and all the fields to the brook Kidron, to the corner of the horse gate toward the east, shall be holy to ForeverOne; it shall not be plucked up, nor thrown down any more forever.