Jeremiah 31:29-37

Jeremiah 31:29. In these 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 eateth the sour grape, his teeth shall be set on edge.

God was going to deal with the Israelites individually, personally; and that is how he will deal with us.

Jeremiah 31:31. Behold,

Here is something worth beholding; read this great promise with tears in your eyes:

Jeremiah 31:31. 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 than, saith the LORD: but this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel, After those days, saith 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.

It is all wills and shalls; it is all covenant life; no longer the law graven upon the tables of stone, but the law written on the heart; no more the Lord's command without man's power and will to obey it; but God will renew our nature, and change our disposition, so that we shall love to do what once we loathed, and shall loathe the sins that we once loved. What a wonderful mass of mercies is included in the covenant of grace!

Jeremiah 31:34. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, know the Lord: for they shall all know me,

«All thy children shall be taught of the Lord.» All believers, whatever else they may not know, do know their Lord: «they shall all know me,»

Jeremiah 31:34. From the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the LORD:

How will they learn to know the Lord? Well, it will be in a very wonderful way;

Jeremiah 31:34. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.

Let me read that again, and may come poor wandering children of God hear the promise, and be glad that it applies to them: « I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.»

Jeremiah 31:35. Thus saith the LORD, which giveth the sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and of the stars for a light by night, which divideth the sea when the waves thereof roar; The LORD of hosts is his name: if these ordinances depart from before me, saith the LORD, then the seed of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before me for ever.

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