Yeremia 3:2

3:2 “Look up at the hilltops and consider this. ¹ 

You have had sex with other gods on every one of them. ² 

You waited for those gods like a thief lying in wait in the desert. ³ 

You defiled the land by your wicked prostitution to other gods. ⁴ 

Yeremia 4:4

4:4 Just as ritual circumcision cuts away the foreskin

as an external symbol of dedicated covenant commitment,

you must genuinely dedicate yourselves to the Lord

and get rid of everything that hinders your commitment to me, ⁵ 

people of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem.

If you do not, ⁶  my anger will blaze up like a flaming fire against you

that no one will be able to extinguish.

That will happen because of the evil you have done.”

Yeremia 9:25

9:25 The Lord says, “Watch out! ⁷  The time is soon coming when I will punish all those who are circumcised only in the flesh. ⁸ 

Yeremia 11:4

11:4 Those are the terms that I charged your ancestors ⁹  to keep ¹⁰  when I brought them out of Egypt, that place which was like an iron-smelting furnace. ¹¹  I said at that time, ¹²  “Obey me and carry out the terms of the agreement ¹³  exactly as I commanded you. If you do, ¹⁴  you will be my people and I will be your God. ¹⁵ 

Yeremia 14:13

14:13 Then I said, “Oh, Lord God, ¹⁶  look! ¹⁷  The prophets are telling them that you said, ¹⁸  ‘You will not experience war or suffer famine. ¹⁹  I will give you lasting peace and prosperity in this land.’” ²⁰ 

Yeremia 28:11

28:11 Then he spoke up in the presence of all the people. “The Lord says, ‘In the same way I will break the yoke of servitude of all the nations to King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon ²¹  before two years are over.’” After he heard this, the prophet Jeremiah departed and went on his way. ²² 

Yeremia 31:13

31:13 The Lord says, ²³  “At that time young women will dance and be glad.

Young men and old men will rejoice. ²⁴ 

I will turn their grief into gladness.

I will give them comfort and joy in place of their sorrow.

Yeremia 36:31

36:31 I will punish him and his descendants and the officials who serve him for the wicked things they have done. ²⁵  I will bring on them, the citizens of Jerusalem, ²⁶  and the people of Judah all the disaster that I threatened to do to them. I will punish them because I threatened them but they still paid no heed.”’” ²⁷ 

Yeremia 38:16

38:16 So King Zedekiah made a secret promise to Jeremiah and sealed it with an oath. He promised, ²⁸  “As surely as the Lord lives who has given us life and breath, ²⁹  I promise you this: I will not kill you or hand you over to those men who want to kill you.” ³⁰ 

Yeremia 38:25

38:25 The officials may hear that I have talked with you. They may come to you and say, ‘Tell us what you said to the king and what the king said to you. ³¹  Do not hide anything from us. If you do, we will kill you.’ ³² 

Yeremia 41:8

41:8 But there were ten men among them who said ³³  to Ishmael, “Do not kill us. For we will give you the stores of wheat, barley, olive oil, and honey we have hidden in a field. ³⁴  So he spared their lives and did not kill ³⁵  them along with the rest. ³⁶ 

Yeremia 42:20

42:20 You are making a fatal mistake. ³⁷  For you sent me to the Lord your God and asked me, ‘Pray to the Lord our God for us. Tell us what the Lord our God says and we will do it.’ ³⁸ 

Yeremia 44:25-26

44:25 The Lord God of Israel who rules over all says, ‘You women ³⁹  have confirmed by your actions what you vowed with your lips! You said, “We will certainly carry out our vows to sacrifice and pour out drink offerings to the Queen of Heaven.” Well, then fulfill your vows! Carry them out!’ ⁴⁰  44:26 But ⁴¹  listen to what the Lord has to say, all you people of Judah who are living in the land of Egypt. The Lord says, ‘I hereby swear by my own great name that none of the people of Judah who are living anywhere in Egypt will ever again invoke my name in their oaths! Never again will any of them use it in an oath saying, “As surely as the Lord God lives….” ⁴² 

[3:2]  ¹ tn Heb “and see.”

[3:2]  ² tn Heb “Where have you not been ravished?” The rhetorical question expects the answer “nowhere,” which suggests she has engaged in the worship of pagan gods on every one of the hilltops.

[3:2]  ³ tn Heb “You sat for them [the lovers, i.e., the foreign gods] beside the road like an Arab in the desert.”

[3:2]  ⁴ tn Heb “by your prostitution and your wickedness.” This is probably an example of hendiadys where, when two nouns are joined by “and,” one expresses the main idea and the other qualifies it.

[4:4]  ⁵ tn Heb “Circumcise yourselves to the Lord and remove the foreskin of your heart.” The translation is again an attempt to bring out the meaning of a metaphor. The mention of the “foreskin of the heart” shows that the passage is obviously metaphorical and involves heart attitude, not an external rite.

[4:4]  ⁶ tn Heb “lest.”

[9:25]  ⁷ tn Heb “Behold!”

[9:25]  ⁸ tn Heb “punish all who are circumcised in the flesh.” The translation is contextually motivated to better bring out the contrast that follows.

[11:4]  ⁹ tn Heb “fathers” (also in vv. 5, 7, 10).

[11:4]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “does not listen…this covenant which I commanded your fathers.” The sentence is broken up this way in conformity with contemporary English style.

[11:4]  ¹¹ tn Heb “out of the land of Egypt, out of the iron-smelting furnace.”

[11:4]  ¹² tn In place of the words “I said at that time” the Hebrew text has “saying.” The sentence is again being restructured in English to avoid the long, confusing style of the Hebrew original.

[11:4]  ¹³ tn Heb “Obey me and carry them out.” The “them” refers back to the terms of the covenant which they were charged to keep according to the preceding. The referent is made specific to avoid ambiguity.

[11:4]  ¹⁴ tn The words, “If you do” are not in the text. They have been supplied in the translation to break up a long sentence consisting of an imperative followed by a consequential sentence.

[11:4]  ¹⁵ sn Obey me and carry out the terms of the agreement…and I will be your God. This refers to the Mosaic law which was instituted at Sinai and renewed on the Plains of Moab before Israel entered into the land. The words “the terms of the covenant” are explicitly used for the Ten Commandments in Exod 34:28 and for the additional legislation given in Deut 28:69; 29:8. The formulation here is reminiscent of Deut 29:9-14 (29:10-15 HT). The book of Deuteronomy is similar in its structure and function to an ancient Near Eastern treaty. In these the great king reminded his vassal of past benefits that he had given to him, charged him with obligations (the terms or stipulations of the covenant) chief among which was absolute loyalty and sole allegiance, promised him future benefits for obeying the stipulations (the blessings), and placed him under a curse for disobeying them. Any disobedience was met with stern warnings of punishment in the form of destruction and exile. Those who had witnessed the covenant were called in to confirm the continuing goodness of the great king and the disloyalty of the vassal. The vassal was then charged with a list of particular infringements of the stipulations and warned to change his actions or suffer the consequences. This is the background for Jer 11:1-9. Jeremiah is here functioning as a messenger from the Lord, Israel’s great king, and charging both the fathers and the children with breach of covenant.

[14:13]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “Lord Yahweh.” The translation follows the ancient Jewish tradition of substituting the Hebrew word for God for the proper name Yahweh.

[14:13]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “Behold.” See the translator’s note on usage of this particle in 1:6.

[14:13]  ¹⁸ tn The words “that you said” are not in the text but are implicit from the first person in the affirmation that follows. They are supplied in the translation for clarity.

[14:13]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “You will not see sword and you will not have starvation [or hunger].”

[14:13]  ²⁰ tn Heb “I will give you unfailing peace in this place.” The translation opts for “peace and prosperity” here for the word שָׁלוֹם (shalom) because in the context it refers both to peace from war and security from famine and plague. The word translated “lasting” (אֱמֶת, ’emet) is a difficult to render here because it has broad uses: “truth, reliability, stability, steadfastness,” etc. “Guaranteed” or “lasting” seem to fit the context the best.

[28:11]  ²¹ tn Heb “I will break the yoke of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon from upon the necks of all the nations.”

[28:11]  ²² tn Heb “Then the prophet Jeremiah went his way.”

[31:13]  ²³ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.” This phrase has been brought up to the beginning of v. 13 from the end of v. 14 to introduce the transition from third person description by Jeremiah to first person address by the Lord.

[31:13]  ²⁴ tc The translation follows the reading of the LXX (Greek version). The Hebrew reads “will dance and be glad, young men and old men together.” The Greek version presupposes a Qal imperfect of a rare verb (יַחְדּוּ [yakhdu] from the verb חָדָה [khadah]; see BDB 292 s.v. II חָדָה Qal) as opposed to the Hebrew text which reads a common adverb יַחְדָּו (yakhdav). The consonantal text is the same but the vocalization is different. There are no other examples of the syntax of the adverb used this way (i.e., of a compound subject added to a third subject) and the vocalization of the Hebrew text can be explained on the basis of a scribe misvocalizing the text based on his greater familiarity with the adverb.

[36:31]  ²⁵ tn Heb “for their iniquity.”

[36:31]  ²⁶ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[36:31]  ²⁷ tn Heb “all the disaster which I spoke against them and they did not listen [or obey].”

[38:16]  ²⁸ tn Heb “So King Zedekiah secretly swore an oath to Jeremiah, saying.”

[38:16]  ²⁹ tn Heb “who has made this life/soul/ breath [נֶפֶשׁ, nefesh] for us.” The Hebrew term נֶפֶשׁ refers to the living, breathing substance of a person which constitutes his very life (cf. BDB 659 s.v. נֶפֶשׁ 1; 3).

[38:16]  ³⁰ tn Heb “who are seeking your life.”

[38:25]  ³¹ tn The phrase “and what the king said to you” is actually at the end of the verse, but most commentators see it as also under the governance of “tell us” and many commentaries and English versions move the clause forward for the sake of English style as has been done here.

[38:25]  ³² tn Or “lest we kill you”; Heb “and we will not kill you,” which as stated in the translator’s note on 37:20 introduces a negative purpose (or result) clause. See 37:20, 38:24 for parallel usage.

[41:8]  ³³ tn Heb “But there were ten men found among them and they said.” However, for the use of “were found” = “be, happened to be” see BDB 594 s.v. מָצָא 2.c and compare the usage in 41:3.

[41:8]  ³⁴ tn This sentence is a good example of the elliptical nature of some of the causal connections in the Hebrew Bible. All the Hebrew says literally is “For we have hidden stores of wheat, barley, olive oil, and honey in a field.” However, it is obvious that they are using this as their bargaining chip to prevent Ishmael and his men from killing them. For the use of “for” (כִּי, ki) for such elliptical thoughts see BDB 473-74 s.v. כִּי 3.c.

[41:8]  ³⁵ tn Or “So he refrained from killing them”; Heb “he refrained and did not kill them.”

[41:8]  ³⁶ tn Heb “in the midst of their brothers/fellow countrymen.”

[42:20]  ³⁷ tn Heb “you are erring at the cost of your own lives” (BDB 1073 s.v. תָּעָה Hiph.3 and HALOT 1626 s.v. תָּעָה Hif 4, and cf. BDB 90 s.v. בְּ 3 and see parallels in 1 Kgs 2:23; 2 Sam 23:17 for the nuance of “at the cost of your lives”). This fits the context better than “you are deceiving yourselves” (KBL 1035 s.v. תָּעָה Hif 4). The reading here follows the Qere הִתְעֵיתֶם (hit’etem) rather than the Kethib which has a metathesis of י (yod) and ת (tav), i.e., הִתְעֵתֶים. The Greek text presupposes הֲרֵעֹתֶם (hare’otem, “you have done evil”), but that reading is generally rejected as secondary.

[42:20]  ³⁸ tn Heb “According to all which the Lord our God says so tell us and we will do.” The restructuring of the sentence is intended to better reflect contemporary English style.

[44:25]  ³⁹ tn Or “You and your wives.” The text and referent here is uncertain because of the confusing picture that the alternation of pronouns presents in this verse. Three of the main verbs are second feminine plurals and one of them is second masculine plural. All the pronominal suffixes on the nouns are second masculine plurals. The Hebrew text reads: “You [masc. pl.] and your [masc. pl.] wives have spoken [2nd fem. pl.; תְּדַבֵּרְנָה, tÿdabberÿnah] with your [masc. pl.] mouth and you have fulfilled [masc. pl.; מִלֵּאתֶם, mille’tem] with your [masc. pl.] hands, saying, ‘We [common gender] will certainly carry out….’ Indeed fulfill [2nd fem. pl.; תָּקִימְנָה, taqimnah] your [masc. pl.] vows and indeed carry out [2nd fem. pl.; תַעֲשֶׂינָה, ta’asenah] your [masc. pl.] vows.” Older commentaries, such as K&D 22:165, explain the feminine verbs as a matter of the women being the principle subject. Most all modern commentaries (e.g., J. A. Thompson, J. Bright, W. L. Holladay, and G. L. Keown, P. J. Scalise, T. G. Smothers) follow the reading of the Greek version which reads “you women” (= אַתֵּנָה הַנָּשִּׁים, [’attenah hannashim]) in place of “you and your wives” (אַתֶּם וּנְשֵׁיכֶם, ’attem unÿshekhem) in the Hebrew. None of them, however, explain the use of the 2nd masc. plurals here. This is possibly a case where the masculine forms are used in the place of the feminine due to the dislike of Hebrew to use the feminine plural forms (cf. GKC 459 §144.a and 466 §145.t). This seems all the more probable when 2nd fem. pl. verbs are qualified by nouns with 2nd masc. pl. suffixes. The translation here follows this interpretation of the masc. pl. forms and reads “you women” with the Greek version in place of “you and your wives” and sees the referents throughout as the women.

[44:25]  ⁴⁰ tn Heb “Carry out your vows!”

[44:25]  sn The commands here are, of course, sarcastic and not meant to be taken literally.

[44:26]  ⁴¹ tn Heb “Therefore.” This particle quite often introduces the announcement of judgment after an indictment or accusation of a crime. That is its function here after the statement of cause in vv. 24-25. However, it would not sound right after the immediately preceding ironical or sarcastic commands to go ahead and fulfill their vows. “But” is a better transition unless one wants to paraphrase “Therefore, since you are so determined to do that….”

[44:26]  ⁴² tn Heb “Behold I swear by…that my name will no more be pronounced in the mouth of any man of Judah in all the land of Egypt saying, ‘As the Lord Yahweh lives.’” The sentence has been broken up and restructured to better conform with contemporary English style and the significance of pronouncing the name has been interpreted for the sake of readers who might not be familiar with this biblical idiom.

[44:26]  sn They will no longer be able to invoke his name in an oath because they will all be put to death (v. 27; cf. vv. 11-14).