For the Lord will not reject forever,
Parallel translations
- WEB For the Lord will not cast off forever.
- KJV For the LORD will not cast off for ever:
- BSB For the Lord will not cast us off forever.
- NKJV For the Lord will not cast off forever.
- NLT For no one is abandoned by the Lord forever.
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
God will not reject His people forever; His rejection is not the final word.
Overview
This verse grounds the hope of the preceding lines in God's character: His casting off is temporary, not permanent. Though Judah feels abandoned, the Lord's covenant faithfulness ensures restoration. This anticipates the assurance that in Christ God will never finally forsake those who are His (Rom. 11:1-2; Heb. 13:5).
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 11
- Ps 94:14For Yahweh won’t reject his people, neither will he forsake his inheritance.
- Ps 103:8–10Yahweh is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abundant in loving kindness.
- Ps 77:7“Will the Lord reject us forever? Will he be favorable no more?
- Isa 54:7–10“For a small moment I have forsaken you; but with great mercies will I gather you.
- Jer 32:40and I will make an everlasting covenant with them, that I will not turn away from following them, to do them good; and I will put my fear in their hearts, that they may not depart from me.
- Isa 57:16For I will not contend forever, neither will I be always angry; for the spirit would faint before me, and the souls whom I have made.
- 1 Sam 12:22For Yahweh will not forsake his people for his great name’s sake, because it has pleased Yahweh to make you a people for himself.
- Jer 31:37Yahweh says: “If heaven above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth searched out beneath, then I will also cast off all the offspring of Israel for all that they have done,” says Yahweh.
- Mic 7:18Who is a God like you, who pardons iniquity, and passes over the disobedience of the remnant of his heritage? He doesn’t retain his anger forever, because he delights in loving kindness.
- Jer 33:24“Don’t consider what this people has spoken, saying, ‘The two families which Yahweh chose, he has cast them off?’ Thus they despise my people, that they should be no more a nation before them.”
- Rom 11:1–6I ask then, did God reject his people? May it never be! For I also am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin.
Resources, by level
Commentaries & study tools
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Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.
Christ at the center
The weeping over a ruined city and the steadfast mercies that are new every morning point to the man of sorrows who wept over Jerusalem and whose mercy rises new from the grave.
How Lamentations 3:31 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.