Ezekiel 16:8
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8 I passed by you again and looked on you; you were at the age for love. I spread the edge of my cloak over you and covered your nakedness: I pledged myself to you and entered into a covenant with you, says the Lord God, and you became mine.(A)
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Jeremiah 2:2-3
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2 Go and proclaim in the hearing of Jerusalem, Thus says the Lord:
I remember the devotion of your youth,
your love as a bride,
how you followed me in the wilderness,
in a land not sown.(A)
3 Israel was holy to the Lord,
the first fruits of his harvest.
All who ate of it were held guilty;
disaster came upon them,
says the Lord.(B)
Isaiah 43:4
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4 Because you are precious in my sight
and honored and I love you,
I give people in return for you,
nations in exchange for your life.(A)
Ruth 3:9
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9 He said, “Who are you?” And she answered, “I am Ruth, your servant; spread your cloak over your servant, for you are next-of-kin.”[a](A)
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- 3.9 Or one with the right to redeem
Romans 5:8
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8 But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.(A)
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Ezekiel 16:6
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6 I passed by you and saw you flailing about in your blood. As you lay in your blood, I said to you, “Live!(A)
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Hosea 11:1
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God’s Compassion Despite Israel’s Ingratitude
11 When Israel was a child, I loved him,
and out of Egypt I called my son.(A)
1 Samuel 12:22
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22 For the Lord will not cast away his people, for his great name’s sake, because it has pleased the Lord to make you a people for himself.(A)
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Deuteronomy 7:6-8
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6 For you are a people holy to the Lord your God; the Lord your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on earth to be his people, his treasured possession.(A)
7 “It was not because you were more numerous than any other people that the Lord set his heart on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples.(B) 8 It was because the Lord loved you and kept the oath that he swore to your ancestors that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.(C)
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Deuteronomy 4:31
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31 Because the Lord your God is a merciful God, he will neither abandon you nor destroy you; he will not forget the covenant with your ancestors that he swore to them.(A)
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Exodus 32:13
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13 Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, how you swore to them by your own self, saying to them, ‘I will multiply your descendants like the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have promised I will give to your descendants, and they shall inherit it forever.’ ”(A)
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Exodus 19:4-8
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4 ‘You have seen what I did to the Egyptians and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself.(A) 5 Now, therefore, if you obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession out of all the peoples. Indeed, the whole earth is mine,(B) 6 but you shall be for me a priestly kingdom and a holy nation.’ These are the words that you shall speak to the Israelites.”(C)
7 So Moses went, summoned the elders of the people, and set before them all these words that the Lord had commanded him. 8 The people all answered as one, “Everything that the Lord has spoken we will do.” Moses reported the words of the people to the Lord.(D)
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Jeremiah 31:3
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3 the Lord appeared to him[a] from far away.[b]
I have loved you with an everlasting love;
therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you.(A)
Isaiah 41:8-9
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8 But you, Israel, my servant,
Jacob, whom I have chosen,
the offspring of Abraham, my friend;(A)
9 you whom I took from the ends of the earth
and called from its farthest corners,
saying to you, “You are my servant;
I have chosen you and not cast you off”;(B)
Romans 9:10-13
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10 Nor is that all; something similar happened to Rebecca when she had conceived children by one husband, our ancestor Isaac:(A) 11 even before they had been born or had done anything good or bad (so that God’s purpose of election might continue, 12 not by works but by his call) she was told, “The elder shall serve the younger.”(B) 13 As it is written,
“I have loved Jacob,
but I have hated Esau.”(C)
Malachi 1:2
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Israel Preferred to Edom
2 “I have loved you,” says the Lord. But you say, “How have you loved us?” “Is not Esau Jacob’s brother?” says the Lord. “Yet I have loved Jacob,(A)
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Hosea 2:18-20
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18 I will make for you[a] a covenant on that day with the wild animals, the birds of the air, and the creeping things of the ground, and I will abolish[b] the bow, the sword, and war from the land, and I will make you[c] lie down in safety.(A) 19 And I will take you for my wife forever; I will take you for my wife in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and in mercy.(B) 20 I will take you for my wife in faithfulness, and you shall know the Lord.(C)
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Jeremiah 31:32
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32 It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the Lord.(A)
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Isaiah 63:7-9
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God’s Mercy Remembered
7 I will recount the gracious deeds of the Lord,
the praiseworthy acts of the Lord,
because of all that the Lord has done for us
and the great favor to the house of Israel
that he has shown them according to his mercy,
according to the abundance of his steadfast love.(A)
8 For he said, “Surely they are my people,
children who will not act deceitfully,”
and he became their savior
9 in all their distress.
It was no messenger or angel
but his presence that saved them;
in his love and pity it was he who redeemed them;
he lifted them up and carried them all the days of old.(B)
Exodus 24:1-8
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The Blood of the Covenant
24 Then he said to Moses, “Come up to the Lord, you and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel, and worship at a distance.(A) 2 Moses alone shall come near the Lord, but the others shall not come near, and the people shall not come up with him.”
3 Moses went and told the people all the words of the Lord and all the ordinances, and all the people answered with one voice and said, “All the words that the Lord has spoken we will do.”(B) 4 And Moses wrote down all the words of the Lord. He rose early in the morning, built an altar at the foot of the mountain, and set up twelve pillars, corresponding to the twelve tribes of Israel.(C) 5 He sent young men of the Israelites, who offered burnt offerings and sacrificed oxen as offerings of well-being to the Lord. 6 Moses took half of the blood and put it in basins, and half of the blood he dashed against the altar.(D) 7 Then he took the book of the covenant and read it in the hearing of the people, and they said, “All that the Lord has spoken we will do, and we will be obedient.”(E) 8 Moses took the blood and dashed it on the people, and said, “Here is the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words.”(F)
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Ezekiel 20:5-6
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5 and say to them: Thus says the Lord God: On the day when I chose Israel, I swore to the offspring of the house of Jacob—making myself known to them in the land of Egypt—I swore to them, saying, “I am the Lord your God.”(A) 6 On that day I swore to them that I would bring them out of the land of Egypt into a land that I had searched out for them, a land flowing with milk and honey, the most glorious of all lands.(B)
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