Jeremiah Prophesies the New Covenant

Amid prophecies of judgment and exile, Jeremiah received a radical promise from God—a new covenant unlike the one made with Israel’s ancestors at Sinai:

“The days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and with the people of Judah. It will not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they broke my covenant, though I was a husband to them.”

The new covenant would differ fundamentally from the Mosaic covenant:

“I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts”—not external tablets of stone but internal transformation

“I will be their God, and they will be my people”—the covenant relationship restored and deepened

“No longer will they teach their neighbor, or say to one another, ‘Know the LORD,’ because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest”—direct, personal knowledge of God for all

“For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more”—complete, permanent forgiveness

This prophecy addressed the fundamental problem the exile exposed: External law couldn’t transform the human heart. The Mosaic covenant, repeatedly broken, would be superseded by something better—an internal covenant producing willing obedience from transformed hearts.

Judaism sees this as a future restoration when Israel returns to God and the law becomes natural to them. Christianity sees it fulfilled in Christ: the New Testament (Greek: diathēkē, covenant) quotes this passage extensively (Hebrews 8), identifying Jesus’s death as inaugurating the new covenant “in my blood” (Luke 22:20). His sacrifice brings forgiveness, and the Holy Spirit writes God’s law on hearts.

This prophecy became foundational to Christian theology—Jesus’s Last Supper, Paul’s teachings, and the very name “New Testament” all trace back to Jeremiah 31:31-34.