^23-24 God’s Message to Jeremiah: “Have you heard the saying that’s making the rounds: ‘The two families God chose, Israel and Judah, he disowned’? And have you noticed that my people are treated with contempt, with rumors afoot that there’s nothing to them anymore?

^25-26 “Well, here’s God’s response: ‘If my covenant with day and night wasn’t in working order, if sky and earth weren’t functioning the way I set them going, then, but only then, you might think I had disowned the descendants of Jacob and of my servant David, and that I wouldn’t set up any of David’s descendants over the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. But as it is, I will give them back everything they’ve lost. The last word is, I will have mercy on them.’”