Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will fulfill the gracious promise that I have spoken to the house of Israel and the house of Judah. In those days and at that time I will cause to sprout for David a righteous Branch, and He will administer justice and righteousness in the land. In those days Judah will be saved, and Jerusalem will dwell securely, and this is the name by which it will be called: The LORD Our Righteousness. For this is what the LORD says: David will never lack a man to sit on the throne of the house of Israel, nor will the priests who are Levites ever fail to have a man before Me to offer burnt offerings, to burn grain offerings, and to present sacrifices." And the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah: "This is what the LORD says: If you can break My covenant with the day and My covenant with the night, so that day and night cease to occupy their appointed time, then My covenant may also be broken with David My servant and with My ministers the Levites who are priests, so that David will not have a son to reign on his throne. As the hosts of heaven cannot be counted and as the sand on the seashore cannot be measured, so too will I multiply the descendants of My servant David and the Levites who minister before Me."
Thus says the LORD, who gives the sun for light by day, who sets in order the moon and stars for light by night, who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar—the LORD of Hosts is His name: "Only if this fixed order departed from My presence, declares the LORD, would Israel's descendants ever cease to be a nation before Me." This is what the LORD says: "Only if the heavens above could be measured and the foundations of the earth below searched out would I reject all of Israel's descendants because of all they have done," declares the LORD.
Significance
Both passages use the same rhetorical strategy: grounding covenant permanence in the unchangeable cosmic order. Jeremiah 31:35-37 declares that Israel would cease to be a nation only "if this fixed order (חֻקֹּת, chuqqot) departed from My presence" — the fixed order of sun, moon, and stars (31:35-36) — while 33:20-21 states that the Davidic and Levitical covenants can be broken only "if you can break My covenant with the day and My covenant with the night." The parallel logic extends the same nature-covenant guarantee from Israel's national existence (ch. 31) to its institutional structures of kingship and priesthood (ch. 33). Together they form Jeremiah's most emphatic affirmation of divine covenant faithfulness — if the sun and moon remain, so will Israel, its king, and its priests.
