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But I will remember the covenant I made with you in the days of your youth, and I will establish an everlasting covenant with you.
Ezekiel 16:60 · Berean Standard Bible
Parallel translations
  • WEB Nevertheless I will remember my covenant with you in the days of your youth, and I will establish to you an everlasting covenant.
  • KJV Nevertheless I will remember my covenant with thee in the days of thy youth, and I will establish unto thee an everlasting covenant.
  • NKJV “Nevertheless I will remember My covenant with you in the days of your youth, and I will establish an everlasting covenant with you.
  • NASB “Nevertheless, I will remember My covenant with you in the days of your youth, and I will establish an everlasting covenant with you.
  • NLT Yet I will remember the covenant I made with you when you were young, and I will establish an everlasting covenant with you.

Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org

Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Quick answer

Despite Jerusalem's faithlessness, God will remember His covenant and establish an everlasting covenant with her. Salvation rests on God's faithfulness, not ours.

Overview

In a stunning reversal, God promises to remember the covenant of Israel's youth and to make an everlasting one. This points beyond Sinai to the new covenant promised in Jeremiah 31 and Ezekiel 36, secured in Christ's blood. Human unfaithfulness cannot finally defeat God's covenant love.

Cross-references & the web

Cross-references · 20

  • Hos 2:19–20So I will betroth you to Me forever; I will betroth you in righteousness and justice, in loving devotion and compassion.
  • Heb 12:24to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.
  • Jer 50:5They will ask the way to Zion and turn their faces toward it. They will come and join themselves to the LORD in an everlasting covenant that will never be forgotten.
  • Ezek 16:8Then I passed by and saw you, and you were indeed old enough for love. So I spread My cloak over you and covered your nakedness. I pledged Myself to you, entered into a covenant with you, and you became Mine, declares the Lord GOD.
  • Heb 8:10For this is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord. I will put My laws in their minds and inscribe them on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they will be My people.
  • Jer 31:31–34Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah.
  • Lev 26:42then I will remember My covenant with Jacob and My covenant with Isaac and My covenant with Abraham, and I will remember the land.
  • Jer 32:38–41They will be My people, and I will be their God.
  • Ps 106:45And He remembered His covenant with them, and relented by the abundance of His loving devotion.
  • Isa 55:3Incline your ear and come to Me; listen, so that your soul may live. I will make with you an everlasting covenant—My loving devotion promised to David.
  • Ps 105:8He remembers His covenant forever, the word He ordained for a thousand generations—
  • Lev 26:45But for their sake I will remember the covenant with their fathers, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the nations, that I might be their God. I am the LORD.”
  • Luke 1:72to show mercy to our fathers and to remember His holy covenant,
  • Neh 1:5–11Then I said: “O LORD, God of heaven, the great and awesome God who keeps His covenant of loving devotion with those who love Him and keep His commandments,
  • Jer 33:20–26“This is what the LORD says: If you can break My covenant with the day and My covenant with the night, so that day and night cease to occupy their appointed time,
  • Hos 2:15There I will give back her vineyards and make the Valley of Achor into a gateway of hope. There she will respond as she did in the days of her youth, as in the day she came up out of Egypt.
  • Ezek 37:26–27And I will make a covenant of peace with them; it will be an everlasting covenant. I will establish them and multiply them, and I will set My sanctuary among them forever.
  • 2 Sam 23:5Is not my house right with God? For He has established with me an everlasting covenant, ordered and secured in every part. Will He not bring about my full salvation and my every desire?
  • Heb 13:20Now may the God of peace, who through the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep,
  • Jer 2:2“Go and proclaim in the hearing of Jerusalem that this is what the LORD says: ‘I remember the devotion of your youth, your love as a bride, how you followed Me in the wilderness, in a land not sown.

Resources, by level

Commentaries & study tools

  • VideoBibleProject — Ezekiel videosBibleProject · Lay · Free · evangelical

    Free animated overview and word-study videos for this book.

  • VideoWatch teaching on Ezekiel 16:60YouTube · Lay · Free

    Sermons and teaching on this passage from across YouTube.

  • CommentaryEnduring Word — verse-by-verseDavid Guzik · Lay · Free · evangelical

    Clear, readable, conservative exposition — the best free place to start on any passage.

  • CommentaryClassic commentaries for this verseBibleHub (20+ works) · Pastoral · Free

    Matthew Henry, Barnes, Gill, the Pulpit Commentary, Ellicott, Cambridge, and more — stacked on one page for this exact verse.

  • CommentaryMatthew Henry on EzekielMatthew Henry · Pastoral · Free · evangelical

    The beloved Puritan exposition of this whole book — warm, devotional, and verse by verse (free, CCEL).

  • ReferenceInterlinear, lexicon & Strong'sBlue Letter Bible · Seminary · Free

    Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.

Christ at the center

The promise of one Shepherd-King David, a new heart and new Spirit, and the river of life flowing from the temple all stream toward Christ, the good Shepherd who gives the Spirit.

How Ezekiel 16:60 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.

Original language

Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.