“For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth; and the former things shall not be remembered, nor come into mind.
⛓ Read Isaiah 65 forward — the whole chapter and its afterlife →Where this passage surfaces again, sorted by the strength of the link. Each kind of reuse — formal quotation, deliberate allusion, faint echo, figural pattern — carries its own mark. Follow any reference to read it in place.
Allusion6
A deliberate verbal borrowing without a citation formula.
'I create new heavens and a new earth, and the former things shall not be remembered' supplies both the new-creation (kaine ktisis) vocabulary and the 'former things not remembered' formula echoed in 5:17. High coherence: Paul reads being 'in Christ' as participation in Isaiah's promised new creation; strong availability and thematic fit.
High confidence'New heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells' draws directly on 'I create new heavens and a new earth,' the prophetic promise of a renewed creation.
High confidence"Neither circumcision... but a new creation" (v.15) draws on Isaiah's "new heavens and a new earth," the prophetic announcement of God's eschatological re-creation. Recurrence of the new-creation theme across Isaiah and coherence with Paul's crucified-world (v.14) make this the primary OT source for kaine ktisis.
High confidenceVerbal and thematic core: 'new heavens and a new earth' (LXX ouranos kainos kai ge kaine) with the 'former things not remembered/passed away' motif — John's 'new heaven and a new earth' and 'the first things have passed away' (v.4) draws on both halves. Strongest availability and recurrence; Hays' volume and thematic coherence both high.
High confidence'I create new heavens and a new earth' is the hope toward which the groaning creation strains (vv.19-22): the liberation of creation 'into the liberty of the glory of the children of God' is the prophetic new-creation renewal of the cosmos.
High confidence'Nor did it enter into the heart of man' (v.9) closely matches Isaiah 65:17 LXX, 'the former things shall not be remembered nor come up into the heart,' suggesting Paul conflated Isaiah 64:4 with the new-creation oracle of Isaiah 65. The shared 'heart' idiom and eschatological 'what God has prepared' give this a strong claim to be part of the quotation's source matrix.
Medium confidence◇ Figural1
A typological pattern re-read in a later text — no verbal quotation, high figural coherence.
'In the regeneration (palingenesia)'—the renewed cosmos—echoes Isaiah's 'I create new heavens and a new earth'; the eschatological re-creation in which the thrones are set.
Medium confidence