Jeremiah 31 · The Lantern

Mourning Turned to Joy

At the same time, says the LORD, will I be the God of all the families of Israel, and they shall be my people.

Thus says 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.

The LORD has appeared of old to me, saying, Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love: therefore with loving devotion have I drawn you.

Again I will build you, and you shall be built, O virgin of Israel: you shall again be adorned with your tabrets, and shall go forth in the dances of them that make merry.

You shall yet plant vines upon the mountains of Samaria: the planters shall plant, and shall eat them as common things.

For there shall be a day, that the watchmen upon the mount Ephraim shall cry, Arise you, and let us go up to Zion to the LORD our God.

For thus says the LORD; Sing with gladness for Jacob, and shout among the chief of the nations: publish you, praise, and say, O LORD, save your people, the remnant of Israel.

Look, I will bring them from the north country, and gather them from the coasts of the earth, and with them the blind and the lame, the woman with child and her that labors with child together: a great company shall return there.

They shall come with weeping, and with supplications will I lead them: I will cause them to walk by the 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.

Hear the word of the LORD, O you nations, and declare it in the isles afar off, and say, He that scattered Israel will gather him, and keep him, as a shepherd does his flock.

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

Therefore they shall come and sing in the height of Zion, and shall flow together to the goodness of the LORD, for wheat, and for wine, and for oil, and for 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.

Then shall the virgin rejoice in the dance, both young men and old together: for I will turn their mourning into joy, and will comfort them, and make them rejoice from their sorrow.

And I will satiate the soul of the priests with fatness, and my people shall be satisfied with my goodness, says the LORD.

Thus says the LORD; A voice was heard in Ramah, lamentation, and bitter weeping; Rahel weeping for her children refused to be comforted for her children, because they were 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; Refrain your voice from weeping, and your eyes from tears: for your work shall be rewarded, says the LORD; and they shall come again from the land of the enemy.

And there is hope in your end, says the LORD, that your children shall come again to their own border.

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

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

Is Ephraim my dear son? is he a pleasant child? for since I spoke against him, I do earnestly remember him still: therefore my bowels are troubled for him; I will surely have mercy upon him, says the LORD.

Set you up waymarks, make you high heaps: set your heart toward the highway, even the way which you went: turn again, O virgin of Israel, turn again to these your cities.

How long will you go about, O you backsliding daughter? for the LORD has created a new thing in the earth, A woman shall compass a man.

Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; As yet they shall use this speech in the land of Judah and in its cities, when I shall bring again their captivity; The LORD bless you, O habitation of justice, and mountain of holiness.

And there shall dwell in Judah itself, and in all its cities together, husbandmen, and they that go forth with flocks.

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

The New Covenant

Upon this I awaked, and saw; and my sleep was sweet to me.

Look, the days come, says 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.

And it shall happen, that like as I have watched over them, to pluck up, and to break down, and to throw down, and to destroy, and to afflict; so will I watch over them, to build, and to plant, says the LORD.

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

But every one shall die for his own iniquity: every man that eats the sour grape, his teeth shall be set on edge.

Look, the days come, says the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah:

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 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 a husband to them, says the LORD:

The number seven is passed away, the octave is arrived. Yesterday is gone, to-day is come, that promised day wherein we are admonished to hear and follow the word of God.

For the grace of the law, which has passed away, we have received the abiding grace of the gospel, and, instead of the shadows and figures of the ancient covenant, truth has come by Jesus Christ.

Learn, all of you—learn! What better law of God is there, after all, than the holy gospel? It is the law of the New Testament, about which you heard, when the prophet was read, "Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, I will perfect on the house of Jacob a new testament, not like the testament that I laid down for their ancestors when I led them from the land of Egypt." The…

But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, says the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people.

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.

I have acted thus, not as a finished master but as one needing to be perfected with his pupils, excellent lady, daughter deservedly honored and cherished in Christ.

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 shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the LORD: for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the LORD: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin 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…

You do not say, "Let man be made," but, "Let us make man." Nor do you say, "after his kind," but after "our image" and "likeness." Because, being renewed in his mind and beholding and apprehending your truth, a person does not need another person as his director so that he may imitate his own kind. By your direction he proves what your good, acceptable and perfect will is.

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, which gives the sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and of the stars for a light by night, which divides the sea when the its waves roar; The LORD of hosts is his name:

If those ordinances depart from before me, says the LORD, then the seed of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before me for ever.

Thus says the LORD; If heaven above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth searched out beneath, I will also cast off all the seed of Israel for all that they have done, says the LORD.

Look, the days come, says the LORD, that the city shall be built to the LORD from the tower of Hananeel to the gate of the corner.

And the measuring line shall yet go forth over against it upon the hill Gareb, and shall compass about to Goath.

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

Jeremiah31

Mourning Turned to Joy

The New Covenant