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“Nevertheless I will remember My covenant with you in the days of your youth, and I will establish an everlasting covenant with you.
Ezekiel 16:60 · New King James Version
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.
  • BSB 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.
  • 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 2:19–20I will betroth you to me forever. Yes, I will betroth you to me in righteousness, in justice, in loving kindness, and in compassion.
  • Heb 12:24to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better than that of Abel.
  • Jer 50:5They will inquire concerning Zion with their faces turned toward it, saying, ‘Come, and join yourselves to Yahweh in an everlasting covenant that shall not be forgotten.’
  • Ezek 16:8“‘“Now when I passed by you, and looked at you, behold, your time was the time of love; and I spread my skirt over you, and covered your nakedness: yes, I swore to you, and entered into a covenant with you,” says the Lord Yahweh, “and you became mine.
  • Heb 8:10“For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel. After those days,” says the Lord; “I will put my laws into their mind, I will also write them on their heart. I will be their God, and they will be my people.
  • Jer 31:31–34“Behold, the days come,” says Yahweh, “that 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 also my covenant with Isaac, and also my covenant with Abraham; and I will remember the land.
  • Jer 32:38–41and they shall be my people, and I will be their God:
  • Ps 106:45He remembered for them his covenant, and repented according to the multitude of his loving kindnesses.
  • Isa 55:3Turn your ear, and come to me. Hear, and your soul will live: and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David.
  • Ps 105:8He has remembered his covenant forever, the word which he commanded to a thousand generations,
  • Lev 26:45but I will for their sake remember the covenant of their ancestors, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the nations, that I might be their God. I am Yahweh.’”
  • Luke 1:72to show mercy towards our fathers, to remember his holy covenant,
  • Neh 1:5–11and said, “I beg you, Yahweh, the God of heaven, the great and awesome God, who keeps covenant and loving kindness with those who love him and keep his commandments:
  • Jer 33:20–26“Yahweh says: ‘If you can break my covenant of the day, and my covenant of the night, so that there shall not be day and night in their season;
  • Hos 2:15I will give her vineyards from there, and the valley of Achor for a door of hope; and she will respond there, as in the days of her youth, and as in the day when she came up out of the land of Egypt.
  • Ezek 37:26–27Moreover I will make a covenant of peace with them; it shall be an everlasting covenant with them; and I will place them, and multiply them, and will set my sanctuary among them forever more.
  • 2 Sam 23:5Most certainly my house is not so with God, yet he has made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things, and sure, for it is all my salvation, and all my desire, although he doesn’t make it grow.
  • Heb 13:20Now may the God of peace, who brought again from the dead the great shepherd of the sheep with the blood of an eternal covenant, our Lord Jesus,
  • Jer 2:2“Go, and proclaim in the ears of Jerusalem, saying, ‘Yahweh says, “I remember for you the kindness of your youth, the love of your weddings; how you went after me in the wilderness, in a land that was 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.