Jeremiah 31 · The Lantern

Mourning Turned to Joy

At that time — the utterance of the LORD — I will be God to all the families of Israel, and they will be a people to me.

Thus says the LORD: A people, survivors of the sword, found favor in the wilderness — Israel, going to his rest.

From far off the LORD appeared to me: And with an everlasting love I have loved you; therefore I have drawn you with loyal love.

Again I will build you, and you will be built, virgin of Israel. Again you will deck yourself with your tambourines and go out in the dance of the merrymakers.

Again you will plant vineyards on the mountains of Samaria; the planters will plant and put them to common use.

For there will be a day when watchers call on the hill country of Ephraim: Arise, and let us go up to Zion, to the LORD our God!

For thus says the LORD: Ring out for Jacob with gladness, and shout at the head of the nations. Make it heard, praise, and say: Save, LORD, your people, the remnant of Israel!

See, I am bringing them from the land of the north and gathering them from the far parts of the earth — among them the blind and the lame, the pregnant and the one giving birth together; a great assembly will return here.

With weeping they will come, and with pleas I will lead them. I will make them walk to streams of water, on a straight way in which they will not stumble; for I have become a father to Israel, and Ephraim is my firstborn.

Hear the word of the LORD, nations, and declare it in the coasts far off, and say: He who scattered Israel will gather him and keep him as a shepherd his flock.

For the LORD has ransomed Jacob and redeemed him from the hand of one stronger than he.

And they will come and ring out on the height of Zion and stream to the goodness of the LORD — over grain and over new wine and over fresh oil, and over the young of the flock and the herd. And their soul will be like a watered garden, and they will not languish again.

Then the virgin will be glad in the dance, and young men and elders together. And I will turn their mourning into joy, and I will comfort them and make them glad from their sorrow.

And I will soak the soul of the priests with fatness, and my people will be satisfied with my goodness — the utterance of the LORD.

Thus says the LORD: A voice is heard in Ramah, wailing, bitter weeping — Rachel weeping for her sons, refusing to be comforted for her sons, for he is not.

Then Herod, when he saw that he was mocked of the wise men, was exceeding wroth, and sent forth, and slew all the children that were in Bethlehem, and in all the coasts thereof, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had diligently inquired of the wise men.

(Verse 15.) Thus says the Lord: A voice is heard in the heights, lamentation, weeping, and mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, and she refused to be comforted over her children, because they are no more.

According to the oracle of Jeremiah, "A voice was heard in Ramah," that is, "on high," "of lamentation and great wailing." This clearly denotes that holy church's mourning, by which it grieves for the violent death of its members, does not, as our enemies foolishly claim, pass away into a void, but it ascends right to the throne of the heavenly judge.

Thus says the LORD: Withhold your voice from weeping and your eyes from tears, for there is a wage for your work — the utterance of the LORD — and they will return from the land of the enemy.

And there is hope for your end — the utterance of the LORD — and sons will return to their border.

I have surely heard Ephraim wandering to and fro: You disciplined me and I was disciplined, like a calf not trained. Turn me back and I will turn back, for you are the LORD my God.

For after my turning back I relented; and after I was made to know, I struck on the thigh. I was ashamed and also humiliated, for I bore the reproach of my youth.

Is Ephraim a precious son to me, a child of delights? For as often as I speak of him, I remember him still. Therefore my bowels moan for him; I will surely have compassion on him — the utterance of the LORD.

Set up for yourself markers, place for yourself signposts; set your heart to the highway, the way you went. Return, virgin of Israel! Return to these your cities!

How long will you turn this way and that, turning daughter? For the LORD has created a new thing in the land: a female surrounds a man.

Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Again they will say this word in the land of Judah and in his cities, when I restore their fortunes: May the LORD bless you, pasture of righteousness, mountain of holiness!

And Judah and all his cities will dwell in her together — plowmen, and those who journey with the flock.

For I have soaked the weary soul, and every languishing soul I have filled.

The New Covenant

At this I awoke and looked, and my sleep was sweet to me.

See, days are coming — the utterance of the LORD — when I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of man and the seed of beast.

And it will be, as I watched over them to uproot and to tear down and to demolish and to destroy and to do evil, so I will watch over them to build and to plant — the utterance of the LORD.

In those days they will no longer say: The fathers ate the sour grape, and the teeth of the sons are set on edge.

But each will die for his own iniquity: every man who eats the sour grape, his own teeth will be set on edge.

See, days are coming — the utterance of the LORD — when I will cut with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah a new covenant,

All things therefore are of one and the same substance, that is, from one and the same God; as also the Lord says to the disciples "Therefore every scribe, which is instructed unto the kingdom of heaven, is like unto a man that is an householder, which bringeth forth out of his treasure things new and old." He did not teach that he who brought forth the old was one, and he that…

(Verse 31, 32.) Behold, days are coming, says the Lord, when I will strike (or establish) the house of Israel and the house of Judah with a new covenant (or testament), not like the covenant (or testament) that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt.

The same prophet again says: Lo! the days are coming, saith the Lord, and I shall make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. etc. This passage is cited by the Apostle in the Epistle to the Romans.

not like the covenant I cut with their fathers on the day I took hold of their hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt — my covenant that they broke, though I was master over them — the utterance of the LORD.

For this is the covenant I will cut with the house of Israel after those days — the utterance of the LORD: I will put my instruction within them, and on their heart I will write it; and I will be God to them, and they will be a people to me.

For the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect. For then would they not have ceased to be offered? because that the worshippers once purged should have had no more conscience of sins.

What are you asking about, you see, is what special thing God is keeping for the good, if he generously bestows so many things on both good and bad.

God proposes the most direct norms. Hence, the Apostle and Jeremiah say: "I will put my laws into their mind, and upon their hearts I will write them." For He inscribed them first in human nature, then in industry or progress, third in grace, and fourth in glory. In every state, He puts forth His rules: wherefore by necessity He must possess them within Himself.

And they will no longer teach, each his neighbor and each his brother, saying: Know the LORD! For all of them will know me, from their least to their greatest — the utterance of the LORD — for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.

He hath changed sunset into sunrise, and through the cross brought death to life; and having wrenched man from destruction, He hath raised him to the skies, transplanting mortality into immortality, and translating earth to heaven-He, the husbandman of God, "Pointing out the favourable signs and rousing the nations to good works, putting them in mind of the true sustenance;" ha…

If we are asked why we do not worship God as the Hebrew fathers of the Old Testament worshipped Him, we reply that God has taught us differently by the New Testament fathers, and yet in no opposition to the Old Testament, but as that Testament itself predicted.

The teachers of the Word come and go, and others follow in the succession of those who pass away. But the sacred Scripture remains for all time without ever being abolished, until the time when the Lord shall appear at the end of the world.

Thus says the LORD, who gives the sun for light by day, the statutes of the moon and the stars for light by night, who stirs the sea so that its waves roar — the LORD of hosts is his name:

If these statutes depart from before my face — the utterance of the LORD — then the seed of Israel too will cease from being a nation before my face, all the days.

Thus says the LORD: If the heavens above can be measured and the foundations of the earth below searched out, then I too will reject all the seed of Israel for all they have done — the utterance of the LORD.

See, days are coming — the utterance of the LORD — when the city will be built for the LORD, from the Tower of Hananel to the Corner Gate.

And the measuring line will go out again straight ahead, over the hill of Gareb, and turn to Goah.

And the whole valley of the corpses and of the ashes, and all the terraces to the Wadi Kidron, to the corner of the Horse Gate to the east, will be holy to the LORD; it will not be uprooted and not be demolished again, forever.

Jeremiah31

Mourning Turned to Joy

The New Covenant