'Covenant' in the Bible

Jehoiada then drew up a covenant between the Lord and the king and people, stipulating that they should be loyal to the Lord.

They rejected his rules, the covenant he had made with their ancestors, and the laws he had commanded them to obey. They paid allegiance to worthless idols, and so became worthless to the Lord. They copied the practices of the surrounding nations in blatant disregard of the Lord's command.

The king went up to the Lord's temple, accompanied by all the people of Judah, all the residents of Jerusalem, the priests, and the prophets. All the people were there, from the youngest to the oldest. He read aloud all the words of the scroll of the covenant that had been discovered in the Lord's temple.

The king stood by the pillar and renewed the covenant before the Lord, agreeing to follow the Lord and to obey his commandments, laws, and rules with all his heart and being, by carrying out the terms of this covenant recorded on this scroll. All the people agreed to keep the covenant.

The king ordered all the people, "Observe the Passover of the Lord your God, as prescribed in this scroll of the covenant."

So David, the leaders of Israel, and the commanders of units of a thousand went to bring up the ark of the Lord's covenant from the house of Obed-Edom with celebration.

When God helped the Levites who were carrying the ark of the Lord's covenant, they sacrificed seven bulls and seven rams.

All Israel brought up the ark of the Lord's covenant; they were shouting, blowing trumpets, sounding cymbals, and playing stringed instruments.

As the ark of the Lord's covenant entered the City of David, Michal, Saul's daughter, looked out the window. When she saw King David jumping and celebrating, she despised him.

and the priests Benaiah and Jahaziel were to blow trumpets regularly before the ark of God's covenant.

David left Asaph and his colleagues there before the ark of the Lord's covenant to serve before the ark regularly and fulfill each day's requirements,

When David had settled into his palace, he said to Nathan the prophet, "Look, I am living in a palace made from cedar, while the ark of the Lord's covenant is under a tent."

Now seek the Lord your God wholeheartedly and with your entire being! Get up and build the sanctuary of the Lord God! Then you can bring the ark of the Lord's covenant and the holy items dedicated to God's service into the temple that is built to honor the Lord."

King David rose to his feet and said: "Listen to me, my brothers and my people. I wanted to build a temple where the ark of the Lord's covenant could be placed as a footstool for our God. I have made the preparations for building it.

and for the refined gold of the incense altar. He gave him the blueprint for the seat of the gold cherubim that spread their wings and provide shelter for the ark of the Lord's covenant.

Then Solomon convened Israel's elders -- all the leaders of the Israelite tribes and families -- in Jerusalem, so they could witness the transferal of the ark of the covenant of the Lord from the City of David (that is, Zion).

The priests brought the ark of the covenant of the Lord to its assigned place in the inner sanctuary of the temple, in the most holy place under the wings of the cherubs.

and set up in it a place for the ark containing the covenant the Lord made with the Israelites."

and the whole assembly made a covenant with the king in the temple of God. Jehoiada said to them, "The king's son will rule, just as the Lord promised David's descendants.

Jehoiada then drew up a covenant stipulating that he, all the people, and the king should be loyal to the Lord.

Now I intend to make a covenant with the Lord God of Israel, so that he may relent from his raging anger.

The king went up to the Lord's temple, accompanied by all the people of Judah, the residents of Jerusalem, the priests, and the Levites. All the people were there, from the oldest to the youngest. He read aloud all the words of the scroll of the covenant that had been discovered in the Lord's temple.

The king stood by his pillar and renewed the covenant before the Lord, agreeing to follow the Lord and to obey his commandments, laws, and rules with all his heart and being, by carrying out the terms of this covenant recorded on this scroll.

He made all who were in Jerusalem and Benjamin agree to it. The residents of Jerusalem acted in accordance with the covenant of God, the God of their ancestors.

Therefore let us enact a covenant with our God to send away all these women and their offspring, in keeping with your counsel, my lord, and that of those who respect the commandments of our God. And let it be done according to the law.

Then I said, "Please, O LORD God of heaven, great and awesome God, who keeps his loving covenant with those who love him and obey his commandments,

When you perceived that his heart was faithful toward you, you established a covenant with him to give his descendants the land of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Jebusites, and the Girgashites. You have fulfilled your promise, for you are righteous.

"So now, our God -- the great, powerful, and awesome God, who keeps covenant fidelity -- do not regard as inconsequential all the hardship that has befallen us -- our kings, our leaders, our priests, our prophets, our ancestors, and all your people -- from the days of the kings of Assyria until this very day!

"Because of all of this we are entering into a binding covenant in written form; our leaders, our Levites, and our priests have affixed their names on the sealed document."

Please remember them, O my God, because they have defiled the priesthood, the covenant of the priesthood, and the Levites.

"I made a covenant with my eyes; how then could I entertain thoughts against a virgin?

The Lord always proves faithful and reliable to those who follow the demands of his covenant.

All this has happened to us, even though we have not rejected you or violated your covenant with us.

He says: "Assemble my covenant people before me, those who ratified a covenant with me by sacrifice!"

God says this to the evildoer: "How can you declare my commands, and talk about my covenant?

Remember your covenant promises, for the dark regions of the earth are full of places where violence rules.

They did not keep their covenant with God, and they refused to obey his law.

They were not really committed to him, and they were unfaithful to his covenant.

The Lord said, "I have made a covenant with my chosen one; I have made a promise on oath to David, my servant:

I will always extend my loyal love to him, and my covenant with him is secure.

I will not break my covenant or go back on what I promised.

You have repudiated your covenant with your servant; you have thrown his crown to the ground.

to those who keep his covenant, who are careful to obey his commands.

He remembered his covenant with them, and relented because of his great loyal love.

He gives food to his faithful followers; he always remembers his covenant.

He delivered his people; he ordained that his covenant be observed forever. His name is holy and awesome.

If your sons keep my covenant and the rules I teach them, their sons will also sit on your throne forever."

who leaves the husband from her younger days, and forgets her marriage covenant made before God.

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

"I, the Lord, officially commission you; I take hold of your hand. I protect you and make you a covenant mediator for people, and a light to the nations,

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

This is what the Lord says: "At the time I decide to show my favor, I will respond to you; in the day of deliverance I will help you; I will protect you and make you a covenant mediator for people, to rebuild the land and to reassign the desolate property.

Even if the mountains are removed and the hills displaced, my devotion will not be removed from you, nor will my covenant of friendship be displaced," says the Lord, the one who has compassion on you.

For this is what the Lord says: "For the eunuchs who observe my Sabbaths and choose what pleases me and are faithful to my covenant,

As for foreigners who become followers of the Lord and serve him, who love the name of the Lord and want to be his servants -- all who observe the Sabbath and do not defile it, and who are faithful to my covenant --

For I, the Lord, love justice and hate robbery and sin. I will repay them because of my faithfulness; I will make a permanent covenant with them.

In those days, your population will greatly increase in the land. At that time," says the Lord, "people will no longer talk about having the ark that contains the Lord's covenant with us. They will not call it to mind, remember it, or miss it. No, that will not 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."

"Hear the terms of the covenant I made with Israel and pass them on to the people of Judah and the citizens of Jerusalem.

Tell them that the Lord, the God of Israel, says, 'Anyone who does not keep the terms of the covenant will be under a curse.

The Lord said to me, "Announce all the following words in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem: 'Listen to the terms of my covenant with you and carry them out!

But they did not listen to me or pay any attention to me! Each one of them followed the stubborn inclinations of his own wicked heart. So I brought on them all the punishments threatened in the covenant because they did not carry out its terms as I commanded them to do.'"

They have gone back to the evil ways of their ancestors of old who refused to obey what I told them. They, too, have paid allegiance to other gods and worshiped them. Both the nation of Israel and the nation of Judah have violated the covenant I made with their ancestors.

For the honor of your name, do not treat Jerusalem with contempt. Do not treat with disdain the place where your glorious throne sits. Be mindful of your covenant with us. Do not break it!

The answer will come back, "It is because they broke their covenant with the Lord their God and worshiped and served other gods."

"Indeed, a time is coming," says the Lord, "when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and Judah.

It will not be like the old covenant that I made with their ancestors when I delivered them from Egypt. For they violated that covenant, even though I was like a faithful husband to them," says the Lord.

"But I will make a new covenant with the whole nation of Israel after I plant them back in the land," says the Lord. "I will put my law within them and write it on their hearts and minds. I will be their God and they will be my people.

I will make a lasting covenant with them that I will never stop doing good to them. I will fill their hearts and minds with respect for me so that they will never again turn away from me.

"I, Lord, make the following promise: 'I have made a covenant with the day and with the night that they will always come at their proper times. Only if you people could break that covenant

could my covenant with my servant David and my covenant with the Levites ever be broken. So David will by all means always have a descendant to occupy his throne as king and the Levites will by all means always have priests who will minister before me.

But I, the Lord, make the following promise: I have made a covenant governing the coming of day and night. I have established the fixed laws governing heaven and earth.

The Lord spoke to Jeremiah after King Zedekiah had made a covenant with all the people in Jerusalem to grant their slaves their freedom.

All the people and their leaders had agreed to this. They had agreed to free their male and female slaves and not keep them enslaved any longer. They originally complied with the covenant and freed them.

"The Lord God of Israel has a message for you. 'I made a covenant with your ancestors when I brought them out of Egypt where they had been slaves. It stipulated,

Recently, however, you yourselves showed a change of heart and did what is pleasing to me. You granted your fellow countrymen their freedom and you made a covenant to that effect in my presence in the house that I have claimed for my own.

I will punish those people who have violated their covenant with me. I will make them like the calf they cut in two and passed between its pieces. I will do so because they did not keep the terms of the covenant they made in my presence.

They will ask the way to Zion; they will turn their faces toward it. They will come and bind themselves to the Lord in a lasting covenant that will never be forgotten.

"'Then I passed by you and watched you, noticing that you had reached the age for love. I spread my cloak over you and covered your nakedness. I swore a solemn oath to you and entered into a marriage covenant with you, declares the sovereign Lord, and you became mine.

"'For this is what the sovereign Lord says: I will deal with you according to what you have done when you despised your oath by breaking your covenant.

Yet I will remember the covenant I made with you in the days of your youth, and I will establish a lasting covenant with you.

Then you will remember your conduct, and be ashamed when you receive your older and younger sisters. I will give them to you as daughters, but not on account of my covenant with you.

I will establish my covenant with you, and then you will know that I am the Lord.

But this one from Israel's royal family rebelled against the king of Babylon by sending his emissaries to Egypt to obtain horses and a large army. Will he prosper? Will the one doing these things escape? Can he break the covenant and escape?

"'As surely as I live, declares the sovereign Lord, surely in the city of the king who crowned him, whose oath he despised and whose covenant he broke -- in the middle of Babylon he will die!

He despised the oath by breaking the covenant. Take note -- he gave his promise and did all these things -- he will not escape!

"'Therefore this is what the sovereign Lord says: As surely as I live, I will certainly repay him for despising my oath and breaking my covenant!

I will make you pass under the shepherd's staff, and I will bring you into the bond of the covenant.

Ethiopia, Put, Lud, all the foreigners, Libya, and the people of the covenant land will die by the sword along with them.

"'I will make a covenant of peace with them and will rid the land of wild beasts, so that they can live securely in the wilderness and even sleep in the woods.

I will make a covenant of peace with them; it will be a perpetual covenant with them. I will establish them, increase their numbers, and place my sanctuary among them forever.

When you bring foreigners, those uncircumcised in heart and in flesh, into my sanctuary, you desecrate it -- even my house -- when you offer my food, the fat and the blood. You have broken my covenant by all your abominable practices.

I prayed to the LORD my God, confessing in this way: "O Lord, great and awesome God who is faithful to his covenant with those who love him and keep his commandments,

He will confirm a covenant with many for one week. But in the middle of that week he will bring sacrifices and offerings to a halt. On the wing of abominations will come one who destroys, until the decreed end is poured out on the one who destroys."

Armies will be suddenly swept away in defeat before him; both they and a covenant leader will be destroyed.

Then the king of the north will return to his own land with much property. His mind will be set against the holy covenant. He will take action, and then return to his own land.

The ships of Kittim will come against him, leaving him disheartened. He will turn back and direct his indignation against the holy covenant. He will return and honor those who forsake the holy covenant.

Then with smooth words he will defile those who have rejected the covenant. But the people who are loyal to their God will act valiantly.

"At that time I will make a covenant for them with the wild animals, the birds of the air, and the creatures that crawl on the ground. I will abolish the warrior's bow and sword -- that is, every weapon of warfare -- from the land, and I will allow them to live securely."

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.