What does I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel mean?

Jeremiah 31 records God's promise of a new covenant with Israel, one not like the covenant broken at Sinai, written on the heart rather than on tablets of stone.

What is covered across Jeremiah 31-38 and Lamentations 1, 3?

Jeremiah 31-33 gives the new covenant promise itself, chapters 36-38 cover the destruction of Jeremiah's scroll and his imprisonment, and Lamentations 1 and 3 mourn Jerusalem's fall.

How is the new covenant different from the earlier one?

The new covenant is explicitly contrasted with the earlier one that Israel broke, moving from an external code to an internal disposition as the way covenant faithfulness is sustained going forward.

What does this reveal about God?

It reveals a God who responds to covenant failure not by abandoning the relationship but by promising a renewed covenant addressed at the root cause of the earlier failure.

What does this mean for us today?

It suggests that covenant renewal after failure is possible in a form that addresses what caused the failure in the first place, rather than simply repeating the same terms.

Introduction

Jeremiah 31 contains a verse that almost every LDS reader has encountered without knowing where it comes from.

Paul quotes it in 2 Corinthians 3.

The author of Hebrews quotes it twice (Hebrews 8:8–12 and 10:16–17).

Jesus invokes it at the Last Supper when he takes the cup.

The verse is Jeremiah 31:31–34.

The Great King speaks the conditional covenant’s next chapter after centuries of breach: “Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: 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 brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the LORD” (Jeremiah 31:31–32).

The Great King names the Sinai suzerain-vassal covenant, acknowledges it was broken, and announces its successor.

How can he do this?

The Great King has made an unconditional, unbreakable covenant that he can never break. Therefore, any conditional covenant for his people can be updated, amended, refreshed, because it sits on the bedrock of his unconditional covenant.

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I Will Make a New Covenant with the House of Israel

Introduction

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