Hope in Thine End

Chapters 30–33 are often called the Book of Consolation, a pocket of hope in a book full of warnings. Chapter 31 opens with the Lord saying, “I have loved thee with an everlasting love” (31:3). Then comes Rachel, the mother of Joseph and Benjamin, pictured weeping for her lost children, and the Lord’s reply: “there is hope in thine end” (31:15–17). Matthew later hears Rachel’s weeping in the grief of Bethlehem’s mothers (Matthew 2:17–18). The chapter builds to the new covenant (31:31–34). The covenant at Sinai was written on stone; this one the Lord will write “in their hearts,” and He promises, “I will remember their sin no more.” Hebrews quotes the passage as fulfilled in Jesus Christ.

🔗 Cross-references

• Matthew 2:17–18 ↗Matthew applies Rachel’s weeping to the mothers of Bethlehem after Jesus was born.
• Hebrews 8:8–12 ↗The writer of Hebrews quotes Jeremiah’s new covenant and teaches that Christ is its mediator.
• Ezekiel 36:26 ↗Jeremiah’s younger contemporary receives the same promise: a new heart and a new spirit.

Babylon’s army surrounds Jerusalem, and Jeremiah is confined in the court of the prison (32:1–2). The Lord tells him his cousin will come offering a family field in Anathoth, and Jeremiah buys it for seventeen shekels of silver, sealing the deed in a clay jar so it will last (32:9–14). It is a purchase that makes no sense unless the Lord’s promise is true: “Houses and fields and vineyards shall be possessed again in this land” (32:15). Jeremiah prays, “there is nothing too hard for thee” (32:17), and then honestly admits his confusion (32:24–25). The Lord answers with His own question: “is there any thing too hard for me?” (32:27). Chapter 33 adds, “Call unto me, and I will answer thee” (33:3), and promises a righteous Branch from David, a title for the Messiah.

🔗 Cross-references

• Genesis 18:14 ↗The Lord asks Abraham and Sarah the same question before Isaac’s birth: “Is any thing too hard for the Lord?”
• Luke 1:37 ↗Gabriel tells Mary that with God nothing shall be impossible.
• Jeremiah 23:5–6 ↗Jeremiah’s earlier prophecy of the righteous Branch, named “The Lord Our Righteousness.”

In the fourth year of King Jehoiakim, the Lord asks Jeremiah to gather His warnings into one scroll, hoping the people will turn “that I may forgive their iniquity and their sin” (36:3). Baruch writes as Jeremiah speaks and reads the scroll at the temple on a fast day. When it reaches the king in his winter house, he cuts off each few columns with a penknife and drops them into the fire (36:22–23). “Yet they were not afraid, nor rent their garments” (36:24), a pointed contrast with his father Josiah, who tore his clothes when the book of the law was read to him (2 Kings 22:11). The Lord hides Jeremiah and Baruch and has the words written again, with more added (36:26, 32). His word outlasts every fire we set.

🔗 Cross-references

• 2 Kings 22:11 ↗Josiah, Jehoiakim’s father, tore his clothes in sorrow when the lost book of the law was read to him.
• 1 Nephi 5:13 ↗The brass plates Lehi’s family carried contained many prophecies of Jeremiah, so his words reached the Americas.
• Isaiah 40:8 ↗“The word of our God shall stand for ever,” even when people wither and fade.

King Zedekiah is caught between Babylon outside and powerful officials inside. He has Jeremiah jailed, then sends for him secretly: “Is there any word from the Lord?” Jeremiah answers, “There is,” and it isn’t what the king wants to hear (37:17). Later the officials lower Jeremiah into a cistern with no water, only mud, and he sinks in it (38:6). The king shrugs, “the king is not he that can do any thing against you” (38:5). Then Ebed-melech, an Ethiopian servant in the palace, walks up to the king in public and says it is wrong (38:8–9). He takes thirty men, ropes, and old rags to pad the ropes under Jeremiah’s arms (38:10–12). Courage and tenderness arrive together.

🔗 Cross-references

• 1 Nephi 7:14 ↗Nephi tells his brothers that the people of Jerusalem have cast Jeremiah into prison.
• Matthew 25:36 ↗The Savior counts visiting those in prison as service rendered to Him.
• Mosiah 18:9 ↗The baptismal covenant includes mourning with those who mourn and comforting those who need comfort.

In the eleventh year of Zedekiah, Babylon breaks through the wall (39:2). The king flees by night and is caught on the plains of Jericho. His sons are killed before his eyes, then he is blinded and carried to Babylon in chains (39:4–7). The city burns, and most of the people are taken captive. Two small mercies shine through. Babylon’s commander frees Jeremiah and entrusts him to Gedaliah (39:11–14), and the Lord keeps His word to Ebed-melech, “because thou hast put thy trust in me” (39:18). The Book of Mormon adds a third: one of Zedekiah’s sons, Mulek, escaped, and his people were led to the promised land (Helaman 8:21; Omni 1:15–16). Even on the worst day, the Lord was preserving a remnant.

🔗 Cross-references

• Helaman 8:21 ↗Nephi, son of Helaman, testifies that not all of Zedekiah’s sons were slain; Mulek survived.
• Omni 1:15–16 ↗The people of Zarahemla came out from Jerusalem when Zedekiah was carried captive.
• 2 Kings 25:7 ↗The parallel account of Zedekiah’s capture and blinding.

Lamentations is a set of five poems of grief over fallen Jerusalem. Four of them are acrostics in Hebrew, each verse or group of verses beginning with the next letter of the alphabet; chapter 3 gives three verses to each of the 22 letters, which is why it has 66. It is sorrow given careful form. Chapter 1 opens with the city sitting “solitary” like a widow and asks, “Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by?” (1:1, 12). Chapter 3 goes down into the dark for twenty verses before it turns: “This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope” (3:21). Then comes the center of the book: His compassions fail not; they are new every morning (3:22–23). And “he doth not afflict willingly” (3:33).

🔗 Cross-references

• Psalm 30:5 ↗“Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.”
• Alma 7:11–12 ↗The Savior took upon Himself our pains and sicknesses so He would know how to succor us.
• Isaiah 53:3–4 ↗The Messiah is a man of sorrows who has borne our griefs, including the griefs Lamentations voices.

Come back to the new covenant and read it slowly. The Lord says it will not be like the covenant made when He took Israel “by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt” (31:32). That law was carved on stone; this one He will write “in their inward parts” (31:33). No one will need to be told “Know the Lord,” because all will know Him, “from the least of them unto the greatest” (31:34). And it ends with the promise that makes the rest possible: “I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.” As you take the sacrament today, you renew that covenant with the One who writes it, Jesus Christ.

🔗 Cross-references

• Doctrine and Covenants 58:42 ↗The Lord repeats the promise in our day: He who repents is forgiven, and the Lord remembers his sins no more.
• 2 Corinthians 3:3 ↗Paul describes believers as a letter written by the Spirit, not on stone but on “fleshy tables of the heart.”
• Mosiah 5:2 ↗King Benjamin’s people describe a mighty change of heart, the new covenant at work.