³¹ For the Lord your God is a merciful God; He will not fail you or destroy you or forget the covenant of your fathers, which He swore to them.

³² For ask now of the days that are past, which were before you, since the day that God created man upon the earth, and ask from one end of the heavens to the other, whether such a great thing as this has ever occurred or been heard of anywhere.

³³ Did ever people hear the voice of God speaking out of the midst of the fire, as you heard, and live?

³⁴ Or has God ever tried to go and take for Himself a nation from the midst of another nation, by trials, by signs, by wonders, by war, by a mighty hand, by an outstretched arm, and by great terrors, as the Lord your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes?

³⁵ To you it was shown, that you might realize and have personal knowledge that the Lord is God; there is no other besides Him.

⁴ For thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, concerning the houses of this city and the houses of the kings of Judah which are torn down to make a defense against the siege mounds and before the sword:^(A)

⁵ They [the besieged Jews] are coming in to fight against the Chaldeans, and they [the houses] will be filled with the dead bodies of men whom I shall slay in My anger and My wrath; for I have hidden My face [in indignation] from this city because of all their wickedness.

²³ Moreover, the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah, saying,

²⁴ Have you not noticed that these people [the Jews] are saying, The Lord has cast off the two families [Israel and Judah] which He chose? Thus My people have despised [themselves in relation to God as His covenant people], so that they are no more a nation in their [own] sight.

²⁵ Thus says the Lord: If My covenant with day and night does not stand, and if I have not appointed the ordinances of the heavens and the earth [the whole order of nature],

²⁶ Then will I also cast away the descendants of Jacob and David My servant and will not choose one of his offspring to be ruler over the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. For I will cause their captivity to be reversed, and I will have mercy, kindness, and steadfast love on and for them.^(A)

² No, God has not rejected and disowned His people [whose destiny] He had marked out and appointed and foreknown from the beginning. Do you not know what the Scripture says of Elijah, how he pleads with God against Israel?^(A)

³ Lord, they have killed Your prophets; they have demolished Your altars, and I alone am left, and they seek my life.

⁴ But what is God’s reply to him? I have kept for Myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal!^(B)

⁵ So too at the present time there is a remnant (a small believing minority), selected (chosen) by grace (by God’s unmerited favor and graciousness).