I am not saying that the promise of God has failed; for not all the people of Israel are the people of God.

The man said, "Your name will no longer be Jacob. You have struggled with God and with men, and you have won; so your name will be Israel."

and Moses went up the mountain to meet with God. The LORD called to him from the mountain and told him to say to the Israelites, Jacob's descendants:

Now, if you will obey me and keep my covenant, you will be my own people. The whole earth is mine, but you will be my chosen people,

Do this because you belong to the LORD your God. From all the peoples on earth he chose you to be his own special people.

God is indeed good to Israel, to those who have pure hearts.

"But you, Israel my servant, you are the people that I have chosen, the descendants of Abraham, my friend.

"Listen to me, descendants of Jacob, all who are left of my people. I have cared for you from the time you were born.

When Jesus saw Nathanael coming to him, he said about him, "Here is a real Israelite; there is nothing false in him!"

Then you must tell him that I, the LORD, say, 'Israel is my first-born son.

"You are the people of the LORD your God. So when you mourn for the dead, don't gash yourselves or shave the front of your head, as other people do.

My people will return weeping, praying as I lead them back. I will guide them to streams of water, on a smooth road where they will not stumble. I am like a father to Israel, and Ephraim is my oldest son."

"Israel, you are my dearest child, the one I love best. Whenever I mention your name, I think of you with love. My heart goes out to you; I will be merciful.

The LORD says, "When Israel was a child, I loved him and called him out of Egypt as my son.

When Moses went into the Tent to talk with the LORD, he heard the LORD speaking to him from above the lid on the Covenant Box, between the two winged creatures.

She named the boy Ichabod, explaining, "God's glory has left Israel"---referring to the capture of the Covenant Box and the death of her father-in-law and her husband.

"God's glory has left Israel," she said, "because God's Covenant Box has been captured."

shining with the dazzling light of the LORD's presence, and they could not go back in to perform their duties.

Let me see you in the sanctuary; let me see how mighty and glorious you are.

He allowed our enemies to capture the Covenant Box, the symbol of his power and glory.

Let us, your servants, see your mighty deeds; let our descendants see your glorious might.

"No longer will the sun be your light by day Or the moon be your light by night; I, the LORD, will be your eternal light; The light of my glory will shine on you.

Then and there the LORD made a covenant with Abram. He said, "I promise to give your descendants all this land from the border of Egypt to the Euphrates River,

I will make my covenant with you and give you many descendants."

"I will keep my promise to you and to your descendants in future generations as an everlasting covenant. I will be your God and the God of your descendants.

You and your descendants must all agree to circumcise every male among you.

Then he took the book of the covenant, in which the LORD's commands were written, and read it aloud to the people. They said, "We will obey the LORD and do everything that he has commanded."

Then Moses took the blood in the bowls and threw it on the people. He said, "This is the blood that seals the covenant which the LORD made with you when he gave all these commands."

The LORD said to Moses, "Write these words down, because it is on the basis of these words that I am making a covenant with you and with Israel."

These are the terms of the covenant that the LORD commanded Moses to make with the people of Israel in the land of Moab; all this was in addition to the covenant which the LORD had made with them at Mount Sinai.

The LORD said to Moses, "You will soon die, and after your death the people will become unfaithful to me and break the covenant that I made with them. They will abandon me and worship the pagan gods of the land they are about to enter.

Remember, God, how those people defiled both the office of priest and the covenant you made with the priests and the Levites.

You said, "I have made a covenant with the man I chose; I have promised my servant David,

I will not break my covenant with him or take back even one promise I made him.

The new covenant that I will make with the people of Israel will be this: I will put my law within them and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people.

"I have made a covenant with the day and with the night, so that they always come at their proper times; and that covenant can never be broken.

I will increase the number of descendants of my servant David and the number of priests from the tribe of Levi, so that it will be as impossible to count them as it is to count the stars in the sky or the grains of sand on the seashore."

"Have you noticed how people are saying that I have rejected Israel and Judah, the two families that I chose? And so they look with contempt on my people and no longer consider them a nation.

The promises of God through his prophets are for you, and you share in the covenant which God made with your ancestors. As he said to Abraham, 'Through your descendants I will bless all the people on earth.'

But now, Jesus has been given priestly work which is superior to theirs, just as the covenant which he arranged between God and his people is a better one, because it is based on promises of better things.

But God finds fault with his people when he says, "The days are coming, says the Lord, when I will draw up a new covenant with the people of Israel and with the people of Judah.

Now, this is the covenant that I will make with the people of Israel in the days to come, says the Lord: I will put my laws in their minds and write them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people.

Much, indeed, in every way! In the first place, God trusted his message to the Jews.

At Mount Sinai you came down from heaven; you spoke to your people and gave them good laws and sound teachings.

You taught them to keep your Sabbaths holy, and through your servant Moses you gave them your laws.

He gives his message to his people, his instructions and laws to Israel.

I gave them my commands and taught them my laws, which bring life to anyone who obeys them.

I made the keeping of the Sabbath a sign of the agreement between us, to remind them that I, the LORD, make them holy.

God gave the Law through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

When you enter the land that the LORD has promised to give you, you must perform this ritual.

He dug the soil and cleared it of stones; he planted the finest vines. He built a tower to guard them, dug a pit for treading the grapes. He waited for the grapes to ripen, but every grape was sour.

"Listen to another parable," Jesus said. "There was once a landowner who planted a vineyard, put a fence around it, dug a hole for the wine press, and built a watchtower. Then he rented the vineyard to tenants and left home on a trip.

Behind the second curtain was the tent called the Most Holy Place.

since they have to do only with food, drink, and various purification ceremonies. These are all outward rules, which apply only until the time when God will establish the new order.

He has kept the promise he made to our ancestors, and has come to the help of his servant Israel.

He has remembered to show mercy to Abraham and to all his descendants forever!"

He has provided for us a mighty Savior, a descendant of his servant David.

that he would save us from our enemies, from the power of all those who hate us.

With a solemn oath to our ancestor Abraham he promised to rescue us from our enemies and allow us to serve him without fear,

so that we might be holy and righteous before him all the days of our life.

For God's promise was made to you and your children, and to all who are far away---all whom the Lord our God calls to himself."

The promises of God through his prophets are for you, and you share in the covenant which God made with your ancestors. As he said to Abraham, 'Through your descendants I will bless all the people on earth.'

And so God chose his Servant and sent him to you first, to bless you by making every one of you turn away from your wicked ways."

And we are here to bring the Good News to you: what God promised our ancestors he would do, he has now done for us, who are their descendants, by raising Jesus to life. As it is written in the second Psalm, 'You are my Son; today I have become your Father.'

(SEE 13:32)

At that time you were apart from Christ. You were foreigners and did not belong to God's chosen people. You had no part in the covenants, which were based on God's promises to his people, and you lived in this world without hope and without God.

When God made his promise to Abraham, he made a vow to do what he had promised. Since there was no one greater than himself, he used his own name when he made his vow.

Abraham was patient, and so he received what God had promised.

To those who were to receive what he promised, God wanted to make it very clear that he would never change his purpose; so he added his vow to the promise.