Jeremiah 31:34: what it means for God not to remember sin
34And they will no longer teach, a man his neighbor, and a man his brother, saying: ‘Know the Lord.’ For all will know me, from the littlest of them even to the greatest, says the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will no longer remember their sin.
Two promises chained by a "for": the knowledge of God spreads to everyone because sin has stopped being counted. The order matters — the pardon is the cause, not the reward.
Short answer
Jeremiah 31:34 sits at the heart of the new covenant promise and claims two things: all will know God, from the littlest to the greatest, and sin will no longer be remembered. In Hebrew covenant language, to remember is to take into account — not to hold in memory. The promise is a cancelled debt.
- Written by
- Maria Luisa Navarro Schmitt
- Reviewed by
- Raphael Navarro Schmitt
- Published on
- Reading time
- 2 min read
The closing line is among the most quoted in the Old Testament, and among those that provoke the same objection most often: can God forget? The answer lies in what the word did in that language, not in what it suggests in ours.
Where this verse appears
Jeremiah writes at one of the worst moments in the history of Judah, with Jerusalem under siege or already destroyed. Chapter 31 is an island of hope inside a largely bleak book.
The passage announces a new covenant, contrasted explicitly with the one at Sinai. What changes is not the content of the law but where it sits: from an external document to the inside of people.
What it says
The first half dismantles a monopoly. If everyone knows God, from the littlest to the greatest, there ceases to be a necessary intermediate class for access. In a society with an established priesthood, that was a far-reaching claim.
The second half is what raises questions. The Hebrew verb rendered remember does not, in covenant language, describe a mental operation: it describes taking something into account, acting on the basis of it. When the text says that their sin will not be counted again, it claims the sin has stopped counting in the relationship — not that the information was erased.
It is worth marking the scope of the promise. It is spoken to a people, in a setting of national restoration, and the New Testament takes it up and applies it differently. Christians read this verse inside that later reading, and traditions differ over how the two are joined — without differing that the promise is one of pardon.
What to do with it today
For anyone who relives an old failure every week, the distinction is practical. The text does not promise the memory will vanish, yours or anyone else’s. It promises that the thing has stopped being the measure of the relationship, which is a claim about the present rather than about the past.
And there is an effect on community life. If the knowledge of God reaches from the littlest to the greatest, nobody needs a go-between in order to be heard. That does not abolish teachers or pastors: it abolishes the idea that one person’s faith depends on access granted by another.
What the passages say
33But this will be the covenant that I will form with the house of Israel, after those days, says the Lord: I will give my law to their inner most being, and I will write it upon their heart. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
The verse immediately before, describing the law written on the inside of people. Without it the promise in verse 34 has no mechanism — widespread knowledge is the consequence of an internalised law.
12For I will forgive their iniquities, and I will no longer remember their sins.”
The letter to the Hebrews quotes precisely this promise while arguing about the new covenant. It is the clearest example of how the New Testament reads Jeremiah 31.
A prayer to carry with you
Lord, I still recite by heart a failure you said you no longer count. Teach me to live as someone actually forgiven, and not as someone serving a sentence he handed himself. Amen.