Bible Strands
Lamentations 3:31
For the Lord will not cast us off forever.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — The speaker in Lamentations 3 addresses the afflicted community of Jerusalem during a period of national devastation and personal suffering. This declaration follows instructions to endure humiliation and immediately precedes a promise of future compassion.
The words — The Hebrew phrase יִזְנַח לְעוֹלָם (yiznach le-olam) literally renders "he will reject forever." It combines the verb for casting off or spurning with a temporal term denoting perpetual duration.
The thread — This assurance of permanent divine fidelity echoes the covenant promises in Psalms 94:14 and Psalms 77:7, while aligning with the character description in Psalms 103:8.
Why it lands — The text asserts that divine abandonment is not final, establishing a boundary on suffering. It requires the reader to accept that current grief does not override the stated permanence of God's commitment.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
For the Lord will not cast off for ever:
Cross-references
- Psalms 94:14 For the LORD will not forsake His people; He will never abandon His heritage.
- Psalms 77:7 “Will the Lord spurn us forever and never show His favor again?
- Psalms 103:8 The LORD is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in loving devotion.
- Isaiah 54:7 “For a brief moment I forsook you, but with great compassion I will bring you back.
- 1 Samuel 12:22 Indeed, for the sake of His great name, the LORD will not abandon His people, because He was pleased to make you His own.
- Isaiah 57:16 For I will not accuse you forever, nor will I always be angry; for then the spirit of man would grow weak before Me—the breath of life I have made.
- Jeremiah 32:40 I will make an everlasting covenant with them: I will never turn away from doing good to them, and I will put My fear in their hearts, so that they will never turn away from Me.
- Jeremiah 31:37 This is what the LORD says: “Only if the heavens above could be measured and the foundations of the earth below searched out would I reject all of Israel’s descendants because of all they have done,” declares the LORD.
- Jeremiah 33:24 “Have you not noticed what these people are saying: ‘The LORD has rejected the two families He had chosen’? So they despise My people and no longer regard them as a nation.
- Micah 7:18 Who is a God like You, who pardons iniquity and passes over the transgression of the remnant of His inheritance—who does not retain His anger forever, because He delights in loving devotion?