Lamentations 3:31

¹⁴For the LORD won’t reject his people, neither will he forsake his inheritance.

⁷“Will the Lord reject us forever? Will he be favorable no more?

⁸The LORD is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abundant in loving kindness. ⁹He will not always accuse; neither will he stay angry forever. ¹⁰He has not dealt with us according to our sins, nor repaid us for our iniquities.

⁷“For a small moment I have forsaken you, but I will gather you with great mercies. ⁸In overflowing wrath I hid my face from you for a moment, but with everlasting loving kindness I will have mercy on you,” says the LORD your Redeemer. ⁹“For this is like the waters of Noah to me; for as I have sworn that the waters of Noah will no more go over the earth, so I have sworn that I will not be angry with you, nor rebuke you. ¹⁰For the mountains may depart, and the hills be removed, but my loving kindness will not depart from you, and my covenant of peace will not be removed,” says the LORD who has mercy on you.

¹⁶For I will not contend forever, neither will I always be angry; for the spirit would faint before me, and the souls whom I have made.

⁴⁰I will make an everlasting covenant with them, that I will not turn away from following them, to do them good. I will put my fear in their hearts, that they may not depart from me.

²²For the LORD will not forsake his people for his great name’s sake, because it has pleased the LORD to make you a people for himself.

¹I 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. ²God didn’t reject his people, whom he foreknew. Or don’t you know what the Scripture says about Elijah? How he pleads with God against Israel: ³“Lord, they have killed your prophets. They have broken down your altars. I am left alone, and they seek my life.”⁴But how does God answer him? “I have reserved for myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal.”⁵Even so too at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace. ⁶And if by grace, then it is no longer of works; otherwise grace is no longer grace. But if it is of works, it is no longer grace; otherwise work is no longer work.

²⁴“Don’t consider what this people has spoken, saying, ‘Has the LORD cast off the two families which he chose?’ Thus they despise my people, that they should be no more a nation before them.”

³⁷The LORD 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 the LORD.