Jeremiah — The New Covenant Written on the Heart
Jeremiah's vision of the New Covenant — written not on stone tablets but on the human heart — anticipates the internalization of divine teaching as the highest form of religious life.
Jeremiah 31:31-34 contains one of the most important prophetic visions in the entire Hebrew Bible: 'The day is coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and Judah — not like the covenant I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of Egypt, which they broke, though I was their husband, says the Lord. But this is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put My Torah within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. No longer shall they teach one another, saying Know the Lord, for they shall all know Me, from the least to the greatest.' This vision of Torah internalized — written on the heart rather than on stone — represents the prophetic anticipation of a world where ethical behavior arises from inner transformation rather than external compulsion.
I will put My Torah within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.
Lawrence Kohlberg's stages of moral development culminate in 'post-conventional' morality — where ethical action arises from internalized principles rather than external rules or social pressure — which is precisely the vision of Jeremiah's new covenant: a people who act justly because justice is written on their hearts.
Tanakh