Yeremia 12:13

12:13 My people will sow wheat, but will harvest weeds. ¹ 

They will work until they are exhausted, but will get nothing from it.

They will be disappointed in their harvests ² 

because the Lord will take them away in his fierce anger. ³ 

Yeremia 14:16

14:16 The people to whom they are prophesying will die through war and famine. Their bodies will be thrown out into the streets of Jerusalem ⁴  and there will be no one to bury them. This will happen to the men and their wives, their sons, and their daughters. ⁵  For I will pour out on them the destruction they deserve.” ⁶ 

Yeremia 21:14

21:14 But I will punish you as your deeds deserve,’

says the Lord. ⁷ 

‘I will set fire to your palace;

it will burn up everything around it.’” ⁸ 

Yeremia 32:19

32:19 You plan great things and you do mighty deeds. ⁹  You see everything people do. ¹⁰  You reward each of them for the way they live and for the things they do. ¹¹ 

[12:13]  ¹ sn Invading armies lived off the land, using up all the produce and destroying everything they could not consume.

[12:13]  ² tn The pronouns here are actually second plural: Heb “Be ashamed/disconcerted because of your harvests.” Because the verb form (וּבֹשׁוּ, uvoshu) can either be Qal perfect third plural or Qal imperative masculine plural many emend the pronoun on the noun to third plural (see, e.g., BHS). However, this is the easier reading and is not supported by either the Latin or the Greek which have second plural. This is probably another case of the shift from description to direct address that has been met with several times already in Jeremiah (the figure of speech called apostrophe; for other examples see, e.g., 9:4; 11:13). As in other cases the translation has been leveled to third plural to avoid confusion for the contemporary English reader. For the meaning of the verb here see BDB 101 s.v. בּוֹשׁ Qal.2 and compare the usage in Jer 48:13.

[12:13]  ³ tn Heb “be disappointed in their harvests from the fierce anger of the Lord.” The translation makes explicit what is implicit in the elliptical poetry of the Hebrew original.

[14:16]  ⁴ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[14:16]  ⁵ tn Heb “And the people to whom they are prophesying will be thrown out into the streets of Jerusalem and there will not be anyone to bury them, they, their wives, and their sons and their daughters.” This sentence has been restructured to break up a long Hebrew sentence and to avoid some awkwardness due to differences in the ancient Hebrew and contemporary English styles.

[14:16]  ⁶ tn Heb “their evil.” Hebrew words often include within them a polarity of cause and effect. Thus the word for “evil” includes both the concept of wickedness and the punishment for it. Other words that function this way are “iniquity” = “guilt [of iniquity]” = “punishment [for iniquity].” Context determines which nuance is proper.

[21:14]  ⁷ tn Heb “oracle of the Lord.”

[21:14]  ⁸ tn Heb “I will set fire in its forest and it will devour its surroundings.” The pronouns are actually third feminine singular going back to the participle “you who sit enthroned above the valley.” However, this is another example of those rapid shifts in pronouns typical of the biblical Hebrew style which are uncommon in English. They have regularly been leveled to the same person throughout in the translation to avoid possible confusion for the English reader.

[32:19]  ⁹ tn Heb “[you are] great in counsel and mighty in deed.”

[32:19]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “your eyes are open to the ways of the sons of men.”

[32:19]  ¹¹ tn Heb “giving to each according to his way [= behavior/conduct] and according to the fruit of his deeds.”