Jeremiah 31:34

Jeremiah 31:34, in plain English

People won't need to convince each other to follow God anymore because everyone—from the smallest to the greatest—will know God personally. And God will forgive completely and permanently, never holding sins against anyone.

Why it's here

Under the old system, you needed teachers and leaders to remind you of God's law. In the new covenant, there's such direct knowledge of God that everyone relates to him personally. Plus, forgiveness won't be temporary or conditional—it will be total.

Who's speaking

God continuing to describe the new covenant through Jeremiah

Where it sits in the story

This is what Christians mean by grace and the Holy Spirit. Everyone has access to God; everyone is forgiven. No one is outside the reach of God's knowledge or kept at a distance.

The scholarly reading

In this new covenant community, no one will need to teach others about God, because from the least to the greatest, everyone will possess direct, personal knowledge of the LORD.

Language and setting

The radical democratization announced here—וְלֹא יִשְׁמְרוּ־עוֹד אִישׁ אֶת־רֵעֵהוּ וְאִישׁ אֶת־אָחִיו לֵאמֹר דְּעוּ אֶת־יְהוָה (velo yishmru-od ish et-re'ehu ve-ish et-achiv le'emor de'u et-YHVH—'no longer will man teach his neighbor... saying Know the LORD')—subverts the entire rabbinic and priestly instructional apparatus of Second Temple Judaism. The phrase מִקְּטַנָּם וְעַד־גְּדוֹלָם (miqetannam ve'ad-gdolam—'from their smallest to their greatest') uses economic/social hierarchy language to emphasize universality of access to divine knowledge. The concluding phrase—וְסָלַחְתִּי לַעֲוֹנָם וּלְחַטָּאתָם לֹא אֶזְכְּרֶנָּה עוֹד (vesalachti la'avonam ulechatotam lo ezkrenah od—'and I will forgive their iniquity and remember their sin no more')—grounds this transformed knowledge in prior divine forgiveness.

Voice

The LORD, describing the transformed condition of covenant people.

Significance

This verse speaks to the eschatological removal of mediation—neither priests nor prophets will be necessary as intermediaries of divine knowledge. Christian theology understands this through Jesus as the new High Priest, and through the Spirit's role in giving direct knowledge of God to believers (1 John 2:27). It represents the ultimate goal of biblical revelation: not a legal code but a transformed people in direct relationship with their God, bound by internalized love rather than external coercion.

32It will not be like the covenant I made with their fathers when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt— a covenant they broke, though I was a husband to them,”

33“But this is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD. I will put My law in their minds and inscribe it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they will be My people.

34No longer will each man teach his neighbor or his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ because they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquities and will remember their sins no more.”

35Thus says the LORD, who gives the sun for light by day, who sets in order the moon and stars for light by night, who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar—the LORD of Hosts is His name:

36“Only if this fixed order departed from My presence, declares the LORD, would Israel’s descendants ever cease to be a nation before Me.”

Read all of Jeremiah 31 — God promises something revolutionary: a covenant written not on stone but on hearts. No longer external rules — internal transformation.