'Covenant' in the Bible

For their heart was not right with him, neither were they stedfast in his covenant.

And gave up His strength and power (the ark of the covenant) into captivity,And His glory into the hand of the enemy (the Philistines).

So we, your people and sheep of your pasture, will give you thanks forever. We will praise you forever, to all generations. For the Chief Musician. To the tune of "The Lilies of the Covenant." A Psalm by Asaph.

Hear us O Shepherd of Israel,You who lead Joseph like a flock;You who sit enthroned above the cherubim [of the ark of the covenant], shine forth!

For they consulted in heart together, Against Thee a covenant they make,

I have made a covenant with my chosen, I have sworn unto David my servant,

My mercy will I keep for him for evermore, and my covenant shall stand fast with him.

My covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing that is gone out of my lips.

Thou hast made void the covenant of thy servant: thou hast profaned his crown by casting it to the ground.

To such as keep his covenant, and to those that remember his commandments to do them.

He hath remembered his covenant for ever, the word which he commanded to a thousand generations.

Which covenant he made with Abraham, and his oath unto Isaac;

And confirmed the same unto Jacob for a law, and to Israel for an everlasting covenant:

And he remembered for them his covenant, and repented according to the multitude of his mercies.

He hath given meat unto them that fear him: he will ever be mindful of his covenant.

He sent redemption unto his people: he hath commanded his covenant for ever: holy and reverend is his name.

If thy children will keep my covenant and my testimony that I shall teach them, their children shall also sit upon thy throne for evermore.

Which forsaketh the guide of her youth, and forgetteth the covenant of her God.

Do not those who devise evil go astray? But those who plan good exhibit faithful covenant love.

What is desirable in a man is his fidelity;better to be a poor man than a liar.

The earth also is defiled under the inhabitants thereof; because they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant.

Because ye have said, We have made a covenant with death, and with hell are we at agreement; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, it shall not come unto us: for we have made lies our refuge, and under falsehood have we hid ourselves:

And your covenant with death shall be disannulled, and your agreement with hell shall not stand; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, then ye shall be trodden down by it.

The highways lie waste, the wayfaring man ceaseth: he hath broken the covenant, he hath despised the cities, he regardeth no man.

I the LORD have called thee in righteousness, and will hold thine hand, and will keep thee, and give thee for a covenant of the people, for a light of the Gentiles;

My servant is truly blind, my messenger is truly deaf. My covenant partner, the servant of the Lord, is truly blind.

Thus saith the LORD, In an acceptable time have I heard thee, and in a day of salvation have I helped thee: and I will preserve thee, and give thee for a covenant of the people, to establish the earth, to cause to inherit the desolate heritages;

For the mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed; but my kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed, saith the LORD that hath mercy on thee.

Incline your ear, and come unto me: hear, and your soul shall live; and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David.

For thus saith the LORD unto the eunuchs that keep my sabbaths, and choose the things that please me, and take hold of my covenant;

Also the sons of the stranger, that join themselves to the LORD, to serve him, and to love the name of the LORD, to be his servants, every one that keepeth the sabbath from polluting it, and taketh hold of my covenant;

Behind the doors also and the posts hast thou set up thy remembrance: for thou hast discovered thyself to another than me, and art gone up; thou hast enlarged thy bed, and made thee a covenant with them; thou lovedst their bed where thou sawest it.

As for me, this is my covenant with them, saith the LORD; My spirit that is upon thee, and my words which I have put in thy mouth, shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed's seed, saith the LORD, from henceforth and for ever.

For I the LORD love judgment, I hate robbery for burnt offering; and I will direct their work in truth, and I will make an everlasting covenant with them.

And it shall come to pass, when ye be multiplied and increased in the land, in those days, saith the LORD, they shall say no more, The ark of the covenant of the LORD: neither shall it come to mind: neither shall they remember it; neither shall they visit it; neither shall that be done any more.

Just as ritual circumcision cuts away the foreskin as an external symbol of dedicated covenant commitment, you must genuinely dedicate yourselves to the Lord and get rid of everything that hinders your commitment to me, people of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem. If you do not, my anger will blaze up like a flaming fire against you that no one will be able to extinguish. That will happen because of the evil you have done."

To whom shall I (Jeremiah) speak and give warningThat they may hear?Behold, their ears are closed [absolutely deaf to God]And they cannot listen.Behold, the word of the Lord has become a reprimand and an object of scorn to them;They have no delight in it.

Hear ye the words of this covenant, and speak unto the men of Judah, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem;

And say thou unto them, Thus saith the LORD God of Israel; Cursed be the man that obeyeth not the words of this covenant,

Then the LORD said unto me, Proclaim all these words in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem, saying, Hear ye the words of this covenant, and do them.

Yet they obeyed not, nor inclined their ear, but walked every one in the imagination of their evil heart: therefore I will bring upon them all the words of this covenant, which I commanded them to do; but they did them not.

They are turned back to the iniquities of their forefathers, which refused to hear my words; and they went after other gods to serve them: the house of Israel and the house of Judah have broken my covenant which I made with their fathers.

Do not abhor us, for thy name's sake, do not disgrace the throne of thy glory: remember, break not thy covenant with us.

Then they shall answer, Because they have forsaken the covenant of the LORD their God, and worshipped other gods, and served them.

Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah:

Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the LORD:

But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people.

And I will make an everlasting covenant with them, that I will not turn away from them, to do them good; but I will put my fear in their hearts, that they shall not depart from me.

Thus saith the LORD; If ye can break my covenant of the day, and my covenant of the night, and that there should not be day and night in their season;

Then may also my covenant be broken with David my servant, that he should not have a son to reign upon his throne; and with the Levites the priests, my ministers.

“Have you not noticed what this people have spoken, saying, ‘The two families [Israel the northern kingdom, and Judah the southern kingdom] which the Lord chose, He has rejected’? Thus they despise My [chosen] people, no longer are they [considered] as a nation in their sight.

Thus saith the LORD; If my covenant be not with day and night, and if I have not appointed the ordinances of heaven and earth;

This is the word that came unto Jeremiah from the LORD, after that the king Zedekiah had made a covenant with all the people which were at Jerusalem, to proclaim liberty unto them;

Now when all the princes, and all the people, which had entered into the covenant, heard that every one should let his manservant, and every one his maidservant, go free, that none should serve themselves of them any more, then they obeyed, and let them go.

Thus saith the LORD, the God of Israel; I made a covenant with your fathers in the day that I brought them forth out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondmen, saying,

And ye were now turned, and had done right in my sight, in proclaiming liberty every man to his neighbour; and ye had made a covenant before me in the house which is called by my name:

And I will give the men that have transgressed my covenant, which have not performed the words of the covenant which they had made before me, when they cut the calf in twain, and passed between the parts thereof,

They shall ask the way to Zion with their faces thitherward, saying, Come, and let us join ourselves to the LORD in a perpetual covenant that shall not be forgotten.

Now when I passed by thee, and looked upon thee, behold, thy time was the time of love; and I spread my skirt over thee, and covered thy nakedness: yea, I sware unto thee, and entered into a covenant with thee, saith the Lord GOD, and thou becamest mine.

For thus saith the Lord GOD; I will even deal with thee as thou hast done, which hast despised the oath in breaking the covenant.

Nevertheless I will remember my covenant with thee in the days of thy youth, and I will establish unto thee an everlasting covenant.

Then thou shalt remember thy ways, and be ashamed, when thou shalt receive thy sisters, thine elder and thy younger: and I will give them unto thee for daughters, but not by thy covenant.

And I will establish my covenant with thee; and thou shalt know that I am the LORD:

And hath taken of the king's seed, and made a covenant with him, and hath taken an oath of him: he hath also taken the mighty of the land:

That the kingdom might be base, that it might not lift itself up, but that by keeping of his covenant it might stand.

But he rebelled against him in sending his ambassadors into Egypt, that they might give him horses and much people. Shall he prosper? shall he escape that doeth such things? or shall he break the covenant, and be delivered?

As I live, saith the Lord GOD, surely in the place where the king dwelleth that made him king, whose oath he despised, and whose covenant he brake, even with him in the midst of Babylon he shall die.

Seeing he despised the oath by breaking the covenant, when, lo, he had given his hand, and hath done all these things, he shall not escape.

Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; As I live, surely mine oath that he hath despised, and my covenant that he hath broken, even it will I recompense upon his own head.

And I will cause you to pass under the rod, and I will bring you into the bond of the covenant:

Cush, Put, and Lud,and all the various foreign troops,plus Libya and the men of the covenant landwill fall by the sword along with them.

And I will make with them a covenant of peace, and will cause the evil beasts to cease out of the land: and they shall dwell safely in the wilderness, and sleep in the woods.

Moreover I will make a covenant of peace with them; it shall be an everlasting covenant with them: and I will place them, and multiply them, and will set my sanctuary in the midst of them for evermore.

In that ye have brought into my sanctuary strangers, uncircumcised in heart, and uncircumcised in flesh, to be in my sanctuary, to pollute it, even my house, when ye offer my bread, the fat and the blood, and they have broken my covenant because of all your abominations.

And I prayed unto the LORD my God, and made my confession, and said, O Lord, the great and dreadful God, keeping the covenant and mercy to them that love him, and to them that keep his commandments;

"Lord! Great and awesome God, who keeps his covenant and gracious love for those who love him and obey his commandments, we've sinned, we've practiced evil, we've acted wickedly, and we've rebelled, turning away from your commands and from your regulations.

And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate.

And with the arms of a flood shall they be overflown from before him, and shall be broken; yea, also the prince of the covenant.

Then shall he return into his land with great riches; and his heart shall be against the holy covenant; and he shall do exploits, and return to his own land.

For the ships of Chittim shall come against him: therefore he shall be grieved, and return, and have indignation against the holy covenant: so shall he do; he shall even return, and have intelligence with them that forsake the holy covenant.

And such as do wickedly against the covenant shall he corrupt by flatteries: but the people that do know their God shall be strong, and do exploits.

And in that day will I make a covenant for them with the beasts of the field, and with the fowls of heaven, and with the creeping things of the ground: and I will break the bow and the sword and the battle out of the earth, and will make them to lie down safely.

Hear the word of the Lord, you Israelites! For the Lord has a covenant lawsuit against the people of Israel. For there is neither faithfulness nor loyalty in the land, nor do they acknowledge God.

But they like men have transgressed the covenant: there have they dealt treacherously against me.

Set the trumpet to thy mouth. He shall come as an eagle against the house of the LORD, because they have transgressed my covenant, and trespassed against my law.

They have spoken words, swearing falsely in making a covenant: thus judgment springeth up as hemlock in the furrows of the field.

Ephraim feedeth on wind, and followeth after the east wind: he daily increaseth lies and desolation; and they do make a covenant with the Assyrians, and oil is carried into Egypt.

The Lord also has a covenant lawsuit against Judah; he will punish Jacob according to his ways and repay him according to his deeds.

Thus saith the LORD; For three transgressions of Tyrus, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because they delivered up the whole captivity to Edom, and remembered not the brotherly covenant:

This is what the Lord says: "Because Judah has committed three covenant transgressions -- make that four! -- I will not revoke my decree of judgment. They rejected the Lord's law; they did not obey his commands. Their false gods, to which their fathers were loyal, led them astray.

This is what the Lord says: "Because Israel has committed three covenant transgressions -- make that four! -- I will not revoke my decree of judgment. They sold the innocent for silver, the needy for a pair of sandals.

"Certainly when I punish Israel for their covenant transgressions, I will destroy Bethel's altars. The horns of the altar will be cut off and fall to the ground.

"My Spirit continues to dwell among you, according to the covenant I established when you came out from Egypt. Don't be afraid!'

“Speak to Zerubbabel governor of Judah, saying, ‘I am going to shake the heavens and the earth.

On that day,’ declares the Lord of hosts, ‘I will take you, Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel, My servant,’ declares the Lord, ‘and I will make you [through the Messiah, your descendant] like a signet ring, for I have chosen you [as the one with whom to renew My covenant to David’s line],’” declares the Lord of hosts.

As for thee also, by the blood of thy covenant I have sent forth thy prisoners out of the pit wherein is no water.

And I took my staff, even Beauty, and cut it asunder, that I might break my covenant which I had made with all the people.

So the covenant was broken on that day, and thus the most wretched of the flock who were watching me realized that it was the word of the Lord.

Then I cut the second staff "Binders" in two in order to annul the covenant of brotherhood between Judah and Israel.

And ye shall know that I have sent this commandment unto you, that my covenant might be with Levi, saith the LORD of hosts.