Several texts present God as freely forgiving sin upon repentance (2 Chr 7:14; Jer 31:34; 1 John 1:9). Joshua 24:19 says flatly that God 'will not forgive your transgressions nor your sins.' Matthew 6:15 adds a third condition: God will only forgive if you forgive others first. Read together, the texts pull in three incompatible directions on whether divine forgiveness is unconditional, conditional, or simply unavailable.
Proposed answers
People have answered this in several ways; GEBible presents them as equal peers.
14if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves, pray, seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.
34They will no longer each teach his neighbor, and every man teach his brother, saying, ‘Know Yahweh;’ for they will all know me, from their least to their greatest,” says Yahweh: “for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”
What follows is one scholar’s way of reading this disagreement— a critical-historical view that often concludes the texts genuinely disagree. It draws on the peer-reviewed sources listed below and stands as one position among the answers above, presented for transparency, not as GEBible’s position.
How critical scholarship weighs this: Leans toward a genuine contradiction
This summarizes where critical scholarship tends to land on this tension — a report on the field’s center of gravity, not GEBible’s own ruling.
The answer-streams are not three angles on one doctrine; they are theological voices that pull in different directions, and the Hebrew sharpens rather than dissolves the tension. Joshua 24:19 sits inside a Deuteronomistic covenant-renewal ceremony at Shechem. Joshua tells the assembly, "Ye cannot serve the LORD: for he is an holy God (*'ĕlōhîm qĕdōšîm*); he is a jealous God (*'ēl qannô'*); he will not forgive your transgressions nor your sins." Trent Butler's WBC reads this as deliberate rhetorical provocation — Joshua raises the bar to expose cheap commitment, daring the people to count the cost before they swear loyalty. On that reading the verse is hyperbole in the service of covenant seriousness, not a metaphysical claim that Yahweh is constitutionally incapable of pardon. This is the strongest harmonizing move and it is genuinely plausible: the immediate literary function is provocation, and the very next verses presuppose that the people can in fact serve Yahweh.
The conditional texts can likewise be aligned with one another. 2 Chronicles 7:14 makes forgiveness contingent on humbling, prayer, seeking God's face, and turning from wickedness; 1 John 1:9 conditions it on confession; Matthew 6:15 — embedded in the Lord's Prayer and its appended commentary (vv. 14-15) — conditions it on forgiving others. Davies and Allison note that the Matthean condition is not a meritorious transaction but a description of the disposition of the genuinely repentant: the unforgiving heart has not actually received grace. Read this way, the three conditional passages specify complementary facets of a single repentant posture, and even Joshua 24:19 can be folded in as "will not forgive the unrepentant." Hence partial harmonization.
What resists this synthesis is Jeremiah 31:34. The new-covenant oracle promises, "I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more," and the surrounding verses frame this as Yahweh's unilateral act — the law written on the heart, the relationship established by divine initiative, not contingent on a prior human condition. Jack Lundbom's Anchor Bible treatment stresses the eschatological, unconditional character of the promise: it is precisely what the old covenant could not deliver. To assimilate this to the conditional scheme one must read an implied "if they repent" into a text that pointedly omits it, which inverts the oracle's rhetorical point. Ralph Klein's Hermeneia treatment of 2 Chronicles 7 shows, conversely, how the Chronicler softened the harsher Deuteronomistic theology of irrevocable judgment — evidence that the biblical tradition itself was renegotiating the terms of forgiveness over time.
Walter Brueggemann frames exactly this kind of spread as "core testimony" versus "countertestimony": Israel confesses a God who forgives, and also a God who will by no means clear the guilty, and the canon holds both without resolving them. The fully harmonized reading requires three stacked moves — that "will not forgive" means "will not forgive without repentance," that conditional and unconditional language describe stages of one offer, and that Matthew's condition is functionally identical to confession. The first two are defensible; the third strains; and Jeremiah's unconditional promise remains the genuine outlier.
Where the critical reading lands: partially harmonizable — the conditional and rhetorical texts cohere, but Jeremiah 31:34's unconditional grace reflects a distinct theological voice that the conditional scheme cannot fully absorb.
Sources for this reading
Trent C. Butler, Joshua 13-24 (WBC 7B; Zondervan, 2nd ed. 2014) pp. 287-296on Josh 24:19-20Joshua 24:19-20
Ralph W. Klein, 2 Chronicles: A Commentary (Hermeneia; Fortress, 2012) pp. 109-117on 2 Chr 7:11-222 Chronicles 7:11-22
Jack R. Lundbom, Jeremiah 21-36 (AB 21B; Doubleday, 2004) pp. 465-474on Jer 31:31-34Jeremiah 31:31-34
W. D. Davies and Dale C. Allison, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel According to Saint Matthew, vol. 1 (ICC; T&T Clark, 1988) pp. 611-617on Matt 6:14-15Matthew 6:14-15
Walter Brueggemann, Theology of the Old Testament: Testimony, Dispute, Advocacy (Fortress, 1997) pp. 215-228
Examining the tension
What follows is one scholar’s way of reading this disagreement — a critical-historical view that often concludes the texts genuinely disagree. It draws on the peer-reviewed sources listed below and stands as one position among the answers above, presented for transparency, not as GEBible’s position.
How critical scholarship weighs this: Leans toward a genuine contradiction
This summarizes where critical scholarship tends to land on this tension — a report on the field’s center of gravity, not GEBible’s own ruling.
The answer-streams are not three angles on one doctrine; they are theological voices that pull in different directions, and the Hebrew sharpens rather than dissolves the tension. Joshua 24:19 sits inside a Deuteronomistic covenant-renewal ceremony at Shechem. Joshua tells the assembly, "Ye cannot serve the LORD: for he is an holy God (*'ĕlōhîm qĕdōšîm*); he is a jealous God (*'ēl qannô'*); he will not forgive your transgressions nor your sins." Trent Butler's WBC reads this as deliberate rhetorical provocation — Joshua raises the bar to expose cheap commitment, daring the people to count the cost before they swear loyalty. On that reading the verse is hyperbole in the service of covenant seriousness, not a metaphysical claim that Yahweh is constitutionally incapable of pardon. This is the strongest harmonizing move and it is genuinely plausible: the immediate literary function is provocation, and the very next verses presuppose that the people can in fact serve Yahweh.
The conditional texts can likewise be aligned with one another. 2 Chronicles 7:14 makes forgiveness contingent on humbling, prayer, seeking God's face, and turning from wickedness; 1 John 1:9 conditions it on confession; Matthew 6:15 — embedded in the Lord's Prayer and its appended commentary (vv. 14-15) — conditions it on forgiving others. Davies and Allison note that the Matthean condition is not a meritorious transaction but a description of the disposition of the genuinely repentant: the unforgiving heart has not actually received grace. Read this way, the three conditional passages specify complementary facets of a single repentant posture, and even Joshua 24:19 can be folded in as "will not forgive the unrepentant." Hence partial harmonization.
What resists this synthesis is Jeremiah 31:34. The new-covenant oracle promises, "I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more," and the surrounding verses frame this as Yahweh's unilateral act — the law written on the heart, the relationship established by divine initiative, not contingent on a prior human condition. Jack Lundbom's Anchor Bible treatment stresses the eschatological, unconditional character of the promise: it is precisely what the old covenant could not deliver. To assimilate this to the conditional scheme one must read an implied "if they repent" into a text that pointedly omits it, which inverts the oracle's rhetorical point. Ralph Klein's Hermeneia treatment of 2 Chronicles 7 shows, conversely, how the Chronicler softened the harsher Deuteronomistic theology of irrevocable judgment — evidence that the biblical tradition itself was renegotiating the terms of forgiveness over time.
Walter Brueggemann frames exactly this kind of spread as "core testimony" versus "countertestimony": Israel confesses a God who forgives, and also a God who will by no means clear the guilty, and the canon holds both without resolving them. The fully harmonized reading requires three stacked moves — that "will not forgive" means "will not forgive without repentance," that conditional and unconditional language describe stages of one offer, and that Matthew's condition is functionally identical to confession. The first two are defensible; the third strains; and Jeremiah's unconditional promise remains the genuine outlier.
Where the critical reading lands: partially harmonizable — the conditional and rhetorical texts cohere, but Jeremiah 31:34's unconditional grace reflects a distinct theological voice that the conditional scheme cannot fully absorb.
Sources for this reading