³¹ For the Lord your God is a merciful and compassionate God; He will not fail you, nor destroy you, nor forget the covenant with your fathers which He swore to them.

³² “Indeed, ask now about the days that are past, [those days] which were before you, since the day that God created man on the earth, and ask from one end of the heavens to the other. Has anything been done like this great thing, or has anything been heard like it? ³³ Did [any] people ever hear the voice of God speaking out of the midst of the fire, as you heard, and [still] live? ³⁴ Or has any [man-made] god ever tried to go and take for himself a nation from within another nation by trials, by signs and wonders and by war and by a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm and by great terrors, as the Lord your God did for you in Egypt before your [very] eyes? ³⁵ It was shown to you so that you might have [personal] knowledge and comprehend that the Lord is God; there is no other besides Him.

⁴ For thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, concerning the houses of this city and the houses of the kings of Judah which are torn down to make a defense against the siege ramps and against the sword,^{(A) 5} ‘While they (the besieged Jews) are coming to fight against the Chaldeans and to fill the houses with the dead bodies of men whom I have slain in My anger and in My wrath, for I have hidden My face [in disgust] from this city because of all their wickedness.

²³ And the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah, saying, ²⁴ “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. ²⁵ Thus says the Lord, ‘If My covenant with day and night does not stand, and if I have not established the fixed patterns of heaven and earth, [the whole order of nature,] ²⁶ then I would [also] reject the descendants of Jacob and David My servant, not taking from his descendants rulers over the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. But I will restore their fortunes, and will have mercy on them.’”^(A)

² God has not rejected His [chosen] people whom He foreknew. Or do you not know what the Scripture says of Elijah, how he pleads with God against Israel?^{(A) 3} “Lord, they have killed Your prophets, they have torn down Your altars, and I alone am left [of the prophets], and they are seeking my life.” ⁴ But what is God’s response to him? “I have kept for Myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal.”^{(B) 5} So too then, at the present time there has come to be a remnant [a small believing minority] according to God’s gracious choice.