¹² that at that time you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.

Fears for the Church

⁸ But then, indeed, ^(A)when you did not know God, ^(B)you served those which by nature are not gods.

²¹ And you, ^(A)who once were alienated and enemies in your mind ^(B)by wicked works, yet now He has ^(C)reconciled

A Heavenly Inheritance

^3 (A)Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who ^(B)according to His abundant mercy ^(C)has begotten us again to a living hope ^(D)through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,

A New Covenant

³¹ “Behold, the ^(A)days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah— ³² not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that ^(B)I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, ^[a]though I was a husband to them, says the Lord. ^33 (C)But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: ^(D)I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their ^[b]hearts; ^(E)and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. ³⁴ No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for ^(F)they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the Lord. For ^(G)I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.”