Yeremia 12:2

12:2 You plant them like trees and they put down their roots. ¹ 

They grow prosperous and are very fruitful. ² 

They always talk about you,

but they really care nothing about you. ³ 

Yeremia 17:19-20

Observance of the Sabbath Day Is a Key to the Future ⁴ 

17:19 The Lord told me, “Go and stand in the People’s Gate ⁵  through which the kings of Judah enter and leave the city. Then go and stand in all the other gates of the city of Jerusalem. ⁶  17:20 As you stand in those places ⁷  announce, ‘Listen, all you people who pass through these gates. Listen, all you kings of Judah, all you people of Judah and all you citizens of Jerusalem. Listen to what the Lord says. ⁸ 

Yeremia 19:14

19:14 Then Jeremiah left Topheth where the Lord had sent him to give that prophecy. He went to the Lord’s temple and stood ⁹  in its courtyard and called out to all the people.

Yeremia 28:15

28:15 Then the prophet Jeremiah told the prophet Hananiah, “Listen, Hananiah! The Lord did not send you! You are making these people trust in a lie! ¹⁰ 

Yeremia 36:21

36:21 The king sent Jehudi to get the scroll. He went and got it from the room of Elishama, the royal secretary. Then he himself ¹¹  read it to the king and all the officials who were standing around him.

[12:2]  ¹ tn Heb “You planted them and they took root.”

[12:2]  ² tn Heb “they grow and produce fruit.” For the nuance “grow” for the verb which normally means “go, walk,” see BDB 232 s.v. חָלַךְ Qal.I.3 and compare Hos 14:7.

[12:2]  ³ tn Heb “You are near in their mouths, but far from their kidneys.” The figure of substitution is being used here, “mouth” for “words” and “kidneys” for passions and affections. A contemporary equivalent might be, “your name is always on their lips, but their hearts are far from you.”

[17:19]  ⁴ sn Observance of the Sabbath day (and the Sabbatical year) appears to have been a litmus test of the nation’s spirituality since it is mentioned in a number of passages besides this one (cf., e.g., Isa 56:2, 6; 58:13; Neh 13:15-18). Perhaps this is because the Sabbath day was the sign of the Mosaic covenant (Exod 31:13-17) just as the rainbow was the sign of the Noahic covenant (Gen 9:12, 13, 17) and circumcision was the sign of the Abrahamic covenant (Gen 17:11). This was not the only command they failed to obey, nor was their failure to obey this one the sole determining factor in the Lord’s decision to destroy Judah (cf. 7:23- 24; 11:7-8 in their contexts).

[17:19]  ⁵ sn The identity and location of the People’s Gate is uncertain since it is mentioned nowhere else in the Hebrew Bible. Some identify it with the Benjamin Gate mentioned in Jer 37:13; 38:7 (cf. NAB), but there is no textual support for this in the Hebrew Bible or in any of the ancient versions.

[17:19]  ⁶ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[17:20]  ⁷ tn The words “As you stand there” are not in the text but are implicit in the connection. They are supplied in the translation for clarity.

[17:20]  ⁸ tn Heb “Listen to the word of the Lord, kings of Judah…Jerusalem who enter through these gates.” This sentence has been restructured to avoid a long complex English sentence and to put “Listen to what the Lord says” closer to the content of what he says.

[19:14]  ⁹ tn Heb “And Jeremiah entered from Topheth where the Lord had sent him to prophesy and he stood in the courtyard of the Lord’s temple.”

[28:15]  ¹⁰ tn Or “You are giving these people false assurances.”

[36:21]  ¹¹ tn Heb “and Jehudi read it.” However, Jehudi has been the subject of the preceding; so it would be awkward in English to use the personal subject. The translation has chosen to bring out the idea that Jehudi himself read it by using the reflexive.