Yeremia 2:25

2:25 Do not chase after other gods until your shoes wear out

and your throats become dry. ¹ 

But you say, ‘It is useless for you to try and stop me

because I love those foreign gods ²  and want to pursue them!’

Yeremia 6:29

6:29 The fiery bellows of judgment burn fiercely.

But there is too much dross to be removed. ³ 

The process of refining them has proved useless. ⁴ 

The wicked have not been purged.

Yeremia 9:5

9:5 One friend deceives another

and no one tells the truth.

These people have trained themselves ⁵  to tell lies.

They do wrong and are unable to repent.

Yeremia 10:14

10:14 All these idolaters ⁶  will prove to be stupid and ignorant.

Every goldsmith will be disgraced by the idol he made.

For the image he forges is merely a sham. ⁷ 

There is no breath in any of those idols. ⁸ 

Yeremia 22:21

22:21 While you were feeling secure I gave you warning. ⁹ 

But you said, “I refuse to listen to you.”

That is the way you have acted from your earliest history onward. ¹⁰ 

Indeed, you have never paid attention to me.

Yeremia 23:18

23:18 Yet which of them has ever stood in the Lord’s inner circle ¹¹ 

so they ¹²  could see and hear what he has to say? ¹³ 

Which of them have ever paid attention or listened to what he has said?

Yeremia 26:8

26:8 Jeremiah had just barely finished saying all the Lord had commanded him to say to all the people. All at once some ¹⁴  of the priests, the prophets, and the people grabbed him and shouted, “You deserve to die! ¹⁵ 

Yeremia 29:17

29:17 The Lord who rules over all ¹⁶  says, ‘I will bring war, ¹⁷  starvation, and disease on them. I will treat them like figs that are so rotten ¹⁸  they cannot be eaten.

Yeremia 36:16

36:16 When they had heard it all, ¹⁹  they expressed their alarm to one another. ²⁰  Then they said to Baruch, “We must certainly give the king a report about everything you have read!” ²¹ 

Yeremia 44:29

44:29 Moreover the Lord says, ²²  ‘I will make something happen to prove that I will punish you in this place. I will do it so that you will know that my threats to bring disaster on you will prove true. ²³ 

Yeremia 49:4

49:4 Why do you brag about your great power?

Your power is ebbing away, ²⁴  you rebellious people of Ammon, ²⁵ 

who trust in your riches and say,

‘Who would dare to attack us?’

Yeremia 49:31

49:31 The Lord says, ²⁶  “Army of Babylon, ²⁷  go and attack

a nation that lives in peace and security.

They have no gates or walls to protect them. ²⁸ 

They live all alone.

Yeremia 51:17

51:17 All idolaters will prove to be stupid and ignorant.

Every goldsmith will be disgraced by the idol he made.

For the image he forges is merely a sham.

There is no breath in any of those idols.

Yeremia 51:56

51:56 For a destroyer is attacking Babylon. ²⁹ 

Her warriors will be captured;

their bows will be broken. ³⁰ 

For the Lord is a God who punishes; ³¹ 

he pays back in full. ³² 

[2:25]  ¹ tn Heb “Refrain your feet from being bare and your throat from being dry/thirsty.”

[2:25]  ² tn Heb “It is useless! No!” For this idiom, see Jer 18:12; NEB “No; I am desperate.”

[6:29]  ³ tn Heb “The bellows blow fiercely; the lead is consumed by the fire.” The translation tries to clarify a metaphor involving ancient metallurgy. In the ancient refining process lead was added as a flux to remove impurities from silver ore in the process of oxidizing the lead. Jeremiah says that the lead has been used up and the impurities have not been removed. The translation is based on the recognition of an otherwise unused verb root meaning “blow” (נָחַר [nakhar]; cf. BDB 1123 s.v. I חָרַר and HALOT 651 s.v. נָחַר) and the Masoretes’ suggestion that the consonants מאשׁתם be read מֵאֵשׁ תַּם (me’esh tam) rather than as מֵאֶשָּׁתָם (me’eshatam, “from their fire”) from an otherwise unattested noun אֶשָּׁה (’eshah).

[6:29]  ⁴ tn Heb “The refiner refines them in vain.”

[9:5]  ⁵ tn Heb “their tongues.” However, this is probably not a natural idiom in contemporary English and the tongue may stand as a part for the whole anyway.

[10:14]  ⁶ tn Heb “Every man.” But in the context this is not a reference to all people without exception but to all idolaters. The referent is made explicit for the sake of clarity.

[10:14]  ⁷ tn Or “nothing but a phony god”; Heb “a lie/falsehood.”

[10:14]  ⁸ tn Heb “There is no breath in them.” The referent is made explicit so that no one will mistakenly take it to refer to the idolaters or goldsmiths.

[22:21]  ⁹ tn Heb “I spoke to you in your security.” The reference is to the sending of the prophets. Compare this context with the context of 7:25. For the nuance “security” for this noun (שַׁלְוָה, shalvah) rather than “prosperity” as many translate see Pss 122:7; 30:6 and the related adjective (שָׁלֵו, shalev) in Jer 49:31; Job 16:2; 21:23.

[22:21]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “from your youth.” Compare the usage in 2:2; 3:24 and compare a similar idea in 7:25.

[23:18]  ¹¹ tn Or “has been the Lord’s confidant.”

[23:18]  sn The Lord’s inner circle refers to the council of angels (Ps 89:7 [89:8 HT]; 1 Kgs 22:19-22; Job 1-2; Job 15:8) where God made known his counsel/plans (Amos 3:7). They and those they prophesied to will find out soon enough what the purposes of his heart are, and they are not “peace” (see v. 20). By their failure to announce the impending doom they were not turning the people away from their wicked course (vv. 21-22).

[23:18]  ¹² tn The form here is a jussive with a vav of subordination introducing a purpose after a question (cf. GKC 322 §109.f).

[23:18]  ¹³ tc Heb “his word.” In the second instance (“what he has said” at the end of the verse) the translation follows the suggestion of the Masoretes (Qere) and many Hebrew mss rather than the consonantal text (Kethib) of the Leningrad Codex.

[26:8]  ¹⁴ tn The translation again represents an attempt to break up a long complex Hebrew sentence into equivalent English ones that conform more to contemporary English style: Heb “And as soon as Jeremiah finished saying all that…the priests…grabbed him and said…” The word “some” has been supplied in the translation, because obviously it was not all the priests, the prophets, and all the people, but only some of them. There is, of course, rhetorical intent here to show that all were implicated, although all may not have actually participated. (This is a common figure called synecdoche where all is put for a part – all for all kinds or representatives of all kinds. See E. W. Bullinger, Figures of Speech, 614-19, and compare usage in Acts 10:12; Matt 3:5.)

[26:8]  ¹⁵ tn Or “You must certainly die!” The construction here is again emphatic with the infinitive preceding the finite verb (cf. Joüon 2:423 §123.h, and compare usage in Exod 21:28).

[29:17]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “Yahweh of armies.” See the study note on 2:19 for explanation of this title.

[29:17]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “the sword.”

[29:17]  ¹⁸ tn The meaning of this word is somewhat uncertain. It occurs only here in the Hebrew Bible. BDB 1045 s.v. שֹׁעָר relates it to the noun “horrible thing” (translated “something shocking”) in Jer 5:30; 23:14 and defines it as “horrid, disgusting.” HALOT 1495 s.v. שֹׁעָר relates it to the same noun and define it as “rotten; corrupt.” That nuance is accepted here.

[29:17]  sn Compare Jer 24:8-10 in its context for the figure here.

[36:16]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “all the words.”

[36:16]  ²⁰ tn According to BDB 808 s.v. פָּחַד Qal.1 and 40 s.v. אֶל 3.a, this is an example of the “pregnant” use of a preposition where an implied verb has to be supplied in the translation to conform the normal range of the preposition with the verb that is governing it. The Hebrew text reads: “they feared unto one another.” BDB translates “they turned in dread to each other.” The translation adopted seems more appropriate in this context.

[36:16]  ²¹ tn Heb “We must certainly report to the king all these things.” Here the word דְּבָרִים (dÿvarim) must mean “things” (cf. BDB 183 s.v. דָּבָר IV.3) rather than “words” because a verbatim report of all the words in the scroll is scarcely meant. The present translation has chosen to use a form that suggests a summary report of all the matters spoken about in the scroll rather than the indefinite “things.”

[44:29]  ²² tn Heb “oracle of the Lord.”

[44:29]  ²³ tn Heb “This will be to you the sign, oracle of the Lord, that I will punish you in this place in order that you may know that my threats against you for evil/disaster/harm will certainly stand [see the translator’s note on the preceding verse for the meaning of this word here].” The word “sign” refers to an event that is a pre-omen or portent of something that will happen later (see BDB 16 s.v. אוֹת 2 and compare usage in 1 Sam 14:10; 2 Kgs 19:29). The best way to carry that idea across in this context seems to be “I will make something happen to prove [or portend].” Another possibility would be “I will give you a pre-omen that,” but many readers would probably not be familiar with “omen/pre-omen.” Again the sentence has been broken in two and restructured to better conform with English style.

[49:4]  ²⁴ tn Or “Why do you brag about your valleys, about the fruitfulness of your valleys.” The meaning of the first two lines of this verse are uncertain primarily due to the ambiguity of the expression זָב עִמְקֵךְ (zav ’imqekh). The form זָב (zav) is either a Qal perfect or Qal participle of a verb meaning flow. It is common in the expression “a land flowing with milk and honey” and is also common to refer to the seminal discharge or discharge of blood which makes a man or woman unclean. BDB 264 s.v. זוּב Qal.2 sees it as an abbreviation of the idea of “flowing with milk and honey” and sees it as referring to the fertility of Ammon’s valley. However, there are no other examples of such an ellipsis. Several of the modern English versions and commentaries have taken the word עֵמֶק (’emeq) not as a reference to a valley but to the homonym cited in the note on 47:5 and see the reference here to the flowing away of Ammon’s strength. That interpretation is followed here. Instead of explaining the plural ending on עֲמָקִים (’amaqim) as being an enclitic ם (mem) as others who follow this interpretation (e.g., J. Bright, Jeremiah [AB], 325), the present translation understands the plural as a plural of amplification (cf. GKC 397-98 §124.e and compare the noun “might” in Isa 40:26).

[49:4]  ²⁵ tn Heb “apostate daughter.” This same term is applied to Israel in Jer 31:22 but seems inappropriate here to Ammon because she had never been loyal to the Lord and could not hence be called “apostate.” However, if it is used of the fact that she rebelled against the Lord’s servant, Nebuchadnezzar, it might be appropriate (cf. Jer 27:6, 8). Hence the term “rebellious” is used in the translation to represent it. The word “daughter” is again a personification of the land (cf. BDB 123 s.v. בַּת 3) and is here translated “people of Ammon” to make it easier for the modern reader to identify the referent.

[49:31]  ²⁶ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[49:31]  ²⁷ tn The words “Army of Babylon” are not in the text but are implicit from the context. They are supplied in the translation for clarity.

[49:31]  ²⁸ tn Heb “no gates and no bar,” i.e., “that lives securely without gates or bars.” The phrase is used by the figure of species for genus (synecdoche) to refer to the fact that they have no defenses, i.e., no walls, gates, or bars on the gates. The figure has been interpreted in the translation for the benefit of the average reader.

[51:56]  ²⁹ tn Heb “for a destroyer is coming against her, against Babylon.”

[51:56]  ³⁰ tn The Piel form (which would be intransitive here, see GKC 142 §52.k) should probably be emended to Qal.

[51:56]  ³¹ tn Or “God of retribution.”

[51:56]  ³² tn The infinitive absolute emphasizes the following finite verb. Another option is to translate, “he certainly pays one back.” The translation assumes that the imperfect verbal form here describes the Lord’s characteristic actions. Another option is to take it as referring specifically to his judgment on Babylon, in which case one should translate, “he will pay (Babylon) back in full.”