Yeremia 2:10

2:10 Go west ¹  across the sea to the coasts of Cyprus ²  and see.

Send someone east to Kedar ³  and have them look carefully.

See if such a thing as this has ever happened:

Yeremia 2:23

2:23 “How can you say, ‘I have not made myself unclean.

I have not paid allegiance to ⁴  the gods called Baal.’

Just look at the way you have behaved in the Valley of Hinnom! ⁵ 

Think about the things you have done there!

You are like a flighty, young female camel

that rushes here and there, crisscrossing its path. ⁶ 

Yeremia 3:2

3:2 “Look up at the hilltops and consider this. ⁷ 

You have had sex with other gods on every one of them. ⁸ 

You waited for those gods like a thief lying in wait in the desert. ⁹ 

You defiled the land by your wicked prostitution to other gods. ¹⁰ 

Yeremia 3:6

3:6 When Josiah was king of Judah, the Lord said to me, “Jeremiah, you have no doubt seen what wayward Israel has done. ¹¹  You have seen how she went up to every high hill and under every green tree to give herself like a prostitute to other gods. ¹² 

Yeremia 3:13

3:13 However, you must confess that you have done wrong, ¹³ 

and that you have rebelled against the Lord your God.

You must confess ¹⁴  that you have given yourself to ¹⁵  foreign gods under every green tree,

and have not obeyed my commands,’ says the Lord.

Yeremia 3:17

3:17 At that time the city of Jerusalem ¹⁶  will be called the Lord’s throne. All nations will gather there in Jerusalem to honor the Lord’s name. ¹⁷  They will no longer follow the stubborn inclinations of their own evil hearts. ¹⁸ 

Yeremia 5:22

5:22 “You should fear me!” says the Lord.

“You should tremble in awe before me! ¹⁹ 

I made the sand to be a boundary for the sea,

a permanent barrier that it can never cross.

Its waves may roll, but they can never prevail.

They may roar, but they can never cross beyond that boundary.” ²⁰ 

Yeremia 6:15

6:15 Are they ashamed because they have done such shameful things?

No, they are not at all ashamed.

They do not even know how to blush!

So they will die, just like others have died. ²¹ 

They will be brought to ruin when I punish them,”

says the Lord.

Yeremia 8:12

8:12 Are they ashamed because they have done such disgusting things?

No, they are not at all ashamed!

They do not even know how to blush!

So they will die just like others have died. ²² 

They will be brought to ruin when I punish them,

says the Lord.

Yeremia 11:17

11:17 For though I, the Lord who rules over all, ²³  planted you in the land, ²⁴ 

I now decree that disaster will come on you ²⁵ 

because the nations of Israel and Judah have done evil

and have made me angry by offering sacrifices to the god Baal.” ²⁶ 

Yeremia 12:16

12:16 But they must make sure you learn to follow the religious practices of my people. ²⁷  Once they taught my people to swear their oaths using the name of the god Baal. ²⁸  But then, they must swear oaths using my name, saying, “As surely as the Lord lives, I swear.” ²⁹  If they do these things, ³⁰  then they will be included among the people I call my own. ³¹ 

Yeremia 13:27

13:27 People of Jerusalem, ³²  I have seen your adulterous worship,

your shameless prostitution to, and your lustful pursuit of, other gods. ³³ 

I have seen your disgusting acts of worship ³⁴ 

on the hills throughout the countryside.

You are doomed to destruction! ³⁵ 

How long will you continue to be unclean?’”

Yeremia 16:13

16:13 So I will throw you out of this land into a land that neither you nor your ancestors have ever known. There you must worship other gods day and night, for I will show you no mercy.’”

Yeremia 19:5

19:5 They have built places here ³⁶  for worship of the god Baal so that they could sacrifice their children as burnt offerings to him in the fire. Such sacrifices ³⁷  are something I never commanded them to make! They are something I never told them to do! Indeed, such a thing never even entered my mind!

Yeremia 26:19

26:19 King Hezekiah and all the people of Judah did not put him to death, did they? Did not Hezekiah show reverence for the Lord and seek the Lord’s favor? ³⁸  Did not ³⁹  the Lord forgo destroying them ⁴⁰  as he threatened he would? But we are on the verge of bringing great disaster on ourselves.” ⁴¹ 

Yeremia 32:40

32:40 I will make a lasting covenant ⁴²  with them that I will never stop doing good to them. ⁴³  I will fill their hearts and minds with respect for me so that ⁴⁴  they will never again turn ⁴⁵  away from me.

Yeremia 33:10

33:10 “I, the Lord, say: ⁴⁶  ‘You and your people are saying ⁴⁷  about this place, “It lies in ruins. There are no people or animals in it.” That is true. The towns of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem ⁴⁸  will soon be desolate, uninhabited either by people or by animals. But happy sounds will again be heard in these places.

Yeremia 37:17

37:17 Then King Zedekiah had him brought to the palace. There he questioned him privately and asked him, ⁴⁹  “Is there any message from the Lord?” Jeremiah answered, “Yes, there is.” Then he announced, ⁵⁰  “You will be handed over to the king of Babylon.” ⁵¹ 

Yeremia 42:2

42:2 They said to him, “Please grant our request ⁵²  and pray to the Lord your God for all those of us who are still left alive here. ⁵³  For, as you yourself can see, there are only a few of us left out of the many there were before. ⁵⁴ 

Yeremia 44:2

44:2 “The Lord God of Israel who rules over all ⁵⁵  says, ‘You have seen all the disaster I brought on Jerusalem ⁵⁶  and all the towns of Judah. Indeed, they now lie in ruins and are deserted. ⁵⁷ 

Yeremia 44:15

44:15 Then all the men who were aware that their wives were sacrificing to other gods, as well as all their wives, answered Jeremiah. There was a great crowd of them representing all the people who lived in northern and southern Egypt. ⁵⁸  They answered,

Yeremia 44:21-22

44:21 “The Lord did indeed remember and call to mind what you did! He remembered the sacrifices you and your ancestors, your kings, your leaders, and all the rest of the people of the land offered to other gods ⁵⁹  in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem. ⁶⁰  44:22 Finally the Lord could no longer endure your wicked deeds and the disgusting things you did. That is why your land has become the desolate, uninhabited ruin that it is today. That is why it has become a proverbial example used in curses. ⁶¹ 

Yeremia 46:10

46:10 But that day belongs to the Lord God who rules over all. ⁶² 

It is the day when he will pay back his enemies. ⁶³ 

His sword will devour them until its appetite is satisfied!

It will drink their blood until it is full! ⁶⁴ 

For the Lord God who rules over all ⁶⁵  will offer them up as a sacrifice

in the land of the north by the Euphrates River.

[2:10]  ¹ tn Heb “For go west.”

[2:10]  ² tn Heb “pass over to the coasts of Kittim.” The words “west across the sea” in this line and “east of” in the next are implicit in the text and are supplied in the translation to give geographical orientation.

[2:10]  sn The Hebrew term translated Cyprus (“Kittim”) originally referred to the island of Cyprus but later was used for the lands in the west, including Macedonia (1 Macc 1:1; 8:5) and Rome (Dan 11:30). It is used here as part of a figure called merism to denote the lands in the west as opposed to Kedar which was in the east. The figure includes polar opposites to indicate totality, i.e., everywhere from west to east.

[2:10]  ³ sn Kedar is the home of the Bedouin tribes in the Syro-Arabian desert. See Gen 25:18 and Jer 49:38. See also the previous note for the significance of the reference here.

[2:23]  ⁴ tn Heb “I have not gone/followed after.” See the translator’s note on 2:5 for the meaning and usage of this idiom.

[2:23]  ⁵ tn Heb “Look at your way in the valley.” The valley is an obvious reference to the Valley of Hinnom where Baal and Molech were worshiped and child sacrifice was practiced.

[2:23]  ⁶ sn The metaphor is intended to depict Israel’s lack of clear direction and purpose without the Lord’s control.

[3:2]  ⁷ tn Heb “and see.”

[3:2]  ⁸ 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]  ⁹ tn Heb “You sat for them [the lovers, i.e., the foreign gods] beside the road like an Arab in the desert.”

[3:2]  ¹⁰ 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.

[3:6]  ¹¹ tn “Have you seen…” The question is rhetorical and expects a positive answer.

[3:6]  ¹² tn Heb “she played the prostitute there.” This is a metaphor for Israel’s worship; she gave herself to the worship of other gods like a prostitute gives herself to her lovers. There seems no clear way to completely spell out the metaphor in the translation.

[3:13]  ¹³ tn Heb “Only acknowledge your iniquity.”

[3:13]  ¹⁴ tn The words “You must confess” are repeated to convey the connection. The Hebrew text has an introductory “that” in front of the second line and a coordinative “and” in front of the next two lines.

[3:13]  ¹⁵ tc MT reads דְּרָכַיִךְ (dÿrakhayikh, “your ways”), but the BHS editors suggest דּוֹדַיִךְ (dodayikh, “your breasts”) as an example of orthographic confusion. While the proposal makes sense, it remains a conjectural emendation since it is not supported by any actual manuscripts or ancient versions.

[3:13]  tn Heb “scattered your ways with foreign [gods]” or “spread out your breasts to strangers.”

[3:17]  ¹⁶ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[3:17]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “will gather to the name of the Lord.”

[3:17]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “the stubbornness of their evil hearts.”

[5:22]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “Should you not fear me? Should you not tremble in awe before me?” The rhetorical questions expect the answer explicit in the translation.

[5:22]  ²⁰ tn Heb “it.” The referent is made explicit to avoid any possible confusion.

[6:15]  ²¹ tn Heb “They will fall among the fallen.”

[8:12]  ²² tn Heb “They will fall among the fallen.”

[11:17]  ²³ tn Heb “Yahweh of armies.”

[11:17]  sn For the significance of the term see the notes at 2:19 and 7:3.

[11:17]  ²⁴ tn The words “in the land” are not in the text but are supplied in the translation to clarify the meaning of the metaphor.

[11:17]  ²⁵ tn Heb “For Yahweh of armies who planted you speaks disaster upon you.” Because of the way the term Lord of armies has been rendered this sentence has been restructured to avoid confusion in English style.

[11:17]  ²⁶ tn Heb “pronounced disaster…on account of the evil of the house of Israel and the house of Judah which they have done to make me angry [or thus making me angry] by sacrificing to Baal.” The lines have been broken up in conformity with contemporary English style.

[12:16]  ²⁷ tn Heb “the ways of my people.” For this nuance of the word “ways” compare 10:2 and the notes there.

[12:16]  ²⁸ tn Heb “taught my people to swear by Baal.”

[12:16]  ²⁹ tn The words “I swear” are not in the text but are implicit to the oath formula. They are supplied in the translation for clarity.

[12:16]  ³⁰ tn The words “If they do this” are not in the text. They are part of an attempt to break up a Hebrew sentence which is long and complex into equivalent shorter sentences consistent with contemporary English style. Verse 16 in Hebrew is all one sentence with a long complex conditional clause followed by a short consequence: “If they carefully learn the ways of my people to swear by name, ‘By the life of the Lord,’ as they taught my people to swear by Baal, then they will be built up in the midst of my people.” The translation strives to create the same contingencies and modifications by breaking up the sentence into shorter sentences in accord with contemporary English style.

[12:16]  ³¹ tn Heb “they will be built up among my people.” The expression “be built up among” is without parallel. However, what is involved here is conceptually parallel to the ideas expressed in Isa 19:23-25 and Zech 14:16-19. That is, these people will be allowed to live on their own land, to worship the Lord there, and to come to Jerusalem to celebrate the feasts. To translate literally would be meaningless or misleading for many readers.

[13:27]  ³² tn Heb “Jerusalem.” This word has been pulled up from the end of the verse to help make the transition. The words “people of” have been supplied in the translation here to ease the difficulty mentioned earlier of sustaining the personification throughout.

[13:27]  ³³ tn Heb “[I have seen] your adulteries, your neighings, and your shameless prostitution.” The meanings of the metaphorical references have been incorporated in the translation for the sake of clarity for readers of all backgrounds.

[13:27]  sn The sentence is rhetorically loaded. It begins with three dangling objects of the verb all describing their adulterous relationship with the false gods under different figures and which are resumed later under the words “your disgusting acts.” The Hebrew sentence reads: “Your adulteries, your neighings, your shameful prostitution, upon the hills in the fields I have seen your disgusting acts.” This sentence drips with explosive disgust at their adulterous betrayal.

[13:27]  ³⁴ tn Heb “your disgusting acts.” This word is almost always used of idolatry or of the idols themselves. See BDB 1055 s.v. שִׁקֻּוּץ and Deut 29:17 and Jer 4:1; 7:30.

[13:27]  ³⁵ tn Heb “Woe to you!”

[13:27]  sn See Jer 4:13, 31; 6:4; 10:19 for usage, and the notes on 4:13 and 10:19.

[19:5]  ³⁶ tn The word “here” is not in the text. However, it is implicit from the rest of the context. It is supplied in the translation for clarity.

[19:5]  ³⁷ tn The words “such sacrifices” are not in the text. The text merely says “to burn their children in the fire as burnt offerings to Baal which I did not command.” The command obviously refers not to the qualification “to Baal” but to burning the children in the fire as burnt offerings. The words are supplied in the translation to avoid a possible confusion that the reference is to sacrifices to Baal. Likewise the words should not be translated so literally that they leave the impression that God never said anything about sacrificing their children to other gods. The fact is he did. See Lev 18:21; Deut 12:30; 18:10.

[26:19]  ³⁸ tn This Hebrew idiom (חָלָה פָּנִים, khalah panim) is often explained in terms of “stroking” or “patting the face” of someone, seeking to gain his favor. It is never used in a literal sense and is found in contexts of prayer (Exod 32:11; Ps 119:158), worship (Zech 8:21-22), humble submission (2 Chr 3:12), or amendment of behavior (Dan 9:13). All were true to one extent or another of Hezekiah.

[26:19]  ³⁹ tn The he interrogative (הַ)with the negative governs all three of the verbs, the perfect and the two vav (ו) consecutive imperfects that follow it. The next clause has disjunctive word order and introduces a contrast. The question expects a positive answer.

[26:19]  ⁴⁰ tn For the translation of the terms involved here see the translator’s note on 18:8.

[26:19]  ⁴¹ tn Or “great harm to ourselves.” The word “disaster” (or “harm”) is the same one that has been translated “destroying” in the preceding line and in vv. 3 and 13.

[32:40]  ⁴² tn Heb “an everlasting covenant.” For the rationale for the rendering “agreement” and the nature of the biblical covenants see the study note on 11:2.

[32:40]  sn For other references to the lasting (or everlasting) nature of the new covenant see Isa 55:3; 61:8; Jer 50:5; Ezek 16:60; 37:26. The new covenant appears to be similar to the ancient Near Eastern covenants of grants whereby a great king gave a loyal vassal a grant of land or dynastic dominion over a realm in perpetuity in recognition of past loyalty. The right to such was perpetual as long as the great king exercised dominion, but the actual enjoyment could be forfeited by individual members of the vassal’s dynasty. The best example of such an covenant in the OT is the Davidic covenant where the dynasty was given perpetual right to rule over Israel. Individual kings might be disciplined and their right to enjoy dominion taken away, but the dynasty still maintained the right to rule (see 2 Sam 23:5; Ps 89:26-37 and note especially 1 Kgs 11:23-39). The new covenant appears to be the renewal of God’s promise to Abraham to always be the God of his descendants and for his descendants to be his special people (Gen 17:7) something they appear to have forfeited by their disobedience (see Hos 1:9). However, under the new covenant he promises to never stop doing them good and grants them a new heart, a new spirit, the infusion of his own spirit, and the love and reverence necessary to keep from turning away from him. The new covenant is not based on their past loyalty but on his gracious forgiveness and his gifts.

[32:40]  ⁴³ tn Or “stop being gracious to them” or “stop blessing them with good”; Heb “turn back from them to do good to them.”

[32:40]  ⁴⁴ tn Or “I will make them want to fear and respect me so much that”; Heb “I will put the fear of me in their hearts.” However, as has been noted several times, “heart” in Hebrew is more the center of the volition (and intellect) than the center of emotions as it is in English. Both translations are intended to reflect the difference in psychology.

[32:40]  ⁴⁵ tn The words “never again” are not in the text but are implicit from the context and are supplied not only by this translation but by a number of others.

[33:10]  ⁴⁶ tn Heb “Thus says the Lord.” For the first person rendering see the translator’s note at the end of v. 2.

[33:10]  sn The phrase here is parallel to that in v. 4 and introduces a further amplification of the “great and mysterious things” of v. 3.

[33:10]  ⁴⁷ tn Heb “You.” However, the pronoun is plural as in 32:36, 43. See the translator’s note on 32:36.

[33:10]  ⁴⁸ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[37:17]  ⁴⁹ tn Heb “Then King Zedekiah sent and brought him and the king asked him privately [or more literally, in secret] and said.”

[37:17]  ⁵⁰ tn Heb “Then he said.”

[37:17]  ⁵¹ sn Jeremiah’s answer even under duress was the same that he had given Zedekiah earlier. (See Jer 34:3 and see the study note on 34:1 for the relative timing of these two incidents.)

[42:2]  ⁵² tn Heb “please let our petition fall before you.” For the idiom here see 37:20 and the translator’s note there.

[42:2]  ⁵³ tn Heb “on behalf of us, [that is] on behalf of all this remnant.”

[42:2]  sn This refers to the small remnant of people who were left of those from Mizpah who had been taken captive by Ishmael after he had killed Gedaliah and who had been rescued from him at Gibeon. There were other Judeans still left in the land of Judah who had not been killed or deported by the Babylonians.

[42:2]  ⁵⁴ tn Heb “For we are left a few from the many as your eyes are seeing us.” The words “used to be” are not in the text but are implicit. These words are supplied in the translation for clarity and smoothness of English style.

[44:2]  ⁵⁵ tn Heb “Yahweh of armies, the God of Israel.” Compare 7:3 and see the study note on 2:19 for explanation and translation of this title.

[44:2]  ⁵⁶ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[44:2]  ⁵⁷ tn Heb “Behold, they are in ruins this day and there is no one living in them.”

[44:15]  ⁵⁸ tn The translation is very interpretive at several key points: Heb “Then all the men who were aware that their wives were sacrificing to other gods and all their wives who were standing by, a great crowd/congregation, and all the people who were living in the land of Egypt in Pathros answered, saying.” It is proper to assume that the phrase “a great crowd” is appositional to “all the men…and their wives….” It is also probably proper to assume that the phrase “who were standing by” is unnecessary to the English translation. What is interpretive is the assumption that the “and all the people who were living in Egypt in Pathros” is explicative of “the great crowd” and that the phrase “in Pathros” is conjunctive and not appositional. Several commentaries and English versions (e.g., J. A. Thompson, Jeremiah [NICOT], 678-79, n. 2; NJPS) assume that the phrase is descriptive of a second group, i.e., all the Jews from Pathros in Egypt (i.e., southern Egypt [see the study note on 44:1]). Those who follow this interpretation generally see this as a gloss (see Thompson, 678, n. 2, and also W. L. Holladay, Jeremiah [Hermeneia], 2:279, n. 15b). It is probably better to assume that the phrase is explicative and that “all” is used in the same rhetorical way that it has been used within the chapter, i.e., “all” = representatives of all. Likewise the phrase “in Pathros” should be assumed to be conjunctive as in the Syriac translation and as suggested by BHS fn c since Jeremiah’s answer in vv. 24, 26 is directed to all the Judeans living in Egypt.

[44:21]  ⁵⁹ tn The words “to other gods” are not in the text but are implicit from the context (cf. v. 17). They are supplied in the translation for clarity. It was not the act of sacrifice that was wrong but the recipient.

[44:21]  ⁶⁰ tn Heb “The sacrifices which you sacrificed in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem, you and your fathers, your kings and your leaders and the people of the land, did not the Lord remember them and [did they not] come into his mind?” The question is again rhetorical and expects a positive answer. So it is rendered here as an affirmative statement for the sake of clarity and simplicity. An attempt has been made to shorten the long Hebrew sentence to better conform with contemporary English style.

[44:22]  ⁶¹ tn Heb “And/Then the Lord could no longer endure because of the evil of your deeds [and] because of the detestable things that you did and [or so] your land became a desolation and a waste and an occasion of a curse without inhabitant as this day.” The sentence has been broken up and restructured to better conform with contemporary English style, but an attempt has been made to preserve the causal and consequential connections.

[46:10]  ⁶² tn Heb “the Lord Yahweh of armies.” See the study note at 2:19 for the translation and significance of this title for God.

[46:10]  ⁶³ sn Most commentators think that this is a reference to the Lord exacting vengeance on Pharaoh Necho for killing Josiah, carrying Jehoahaz off into captivity, and exacting heavy tribute on Judah in 609 b.c. (2 Kgs 23:29, 33-35).

[46:10]  ⁶⁴ tn Or more paraphrastically, “he will kill them/ until he has exacted full vengeance”; Heb “The sword will eat and be sated; it will drink its fill of their blood.”

[46:10]  sn This passage is, of course, highly figurative. The Lord does not have a literal “sword,” but he uses agents of destruction like the Assyrian armies (called his “rod” in Isa 10:5-6) and the Babylonian armies (called his war club in Jer 51:20) to wreak vengeance on his foes. Likewise, swords do not “eat” or “drink.” What is meant here is that God will use this battle against the Egyptians to kill off many Egyptians until his vengeance is fully satisfied.

[46:10]  ⁶⁵ tn Heb “the Lord Yahweh of armies.” See the study note at 2:19 for the translation and significance of this title for God.