Yeremia 2:32

2:32 Does a young woman forget to put on her jewels?

Does a bride forget to put on her bridal attire?

But my people have forgotten me

for more days than can even be counted.

Yeremia 2:37

2:37 Moreover, you will come away from Egypt

with your hands covering your faces in sorrow and shame ¹ 

because the Lord will not allow your reliance on them to be successful

and you will not gain any help from them. ² 

Yeremia 6:10

6:10 I answered, ³ 

“Who would listen

if I spoke to them and warned them? ⁴ 

Their ears are so closed ⁵ 

that they cannot hear!

Indeed, ⁶  what the Lord says is offensive to them.

They do not like it at all. ⁷ 

Yeremia 8:9

8:9 Your wise men will be put to shame.

They will be dumbfounded and be brought to judgment. ⁸ 

Since they have rejected the word of the Lord,

what wisdom do they really have?

Yeremia 10:20

10:20 But our tents have been destroyed.

The ropes that held them in place have been ripped apart. ⁹ 

Our children are gone and are not coming back. ¹⁰ 

There is no survivor to put our tents back up,

no one left to hang their tent curtains in place.

Yeremia 12:12

12:12 A destructive army ¹¹  will come marching

over the hilltops in the desert.

For the Lord will use them as his destructive weapon ¹² 

against ¹³  everyone from one end of the land to the other.

No one will be safe. ¹⁴ 

Yeremia 13:19

13:19 The gates of the towns in southern Judah will be shut tight. ¹⁵ 

No one will be able to go in or out of them. ¹⁶ 

All Judah will be carried off into exile.

They will be completely carried off into exile.’” ¹⁷ 

Yeremia 15:5

15:5 The Lord cried out, ¹⁸ 

“Who in the world ¹⁹  will have pity on you, Jerusalem?

Who will grieve over you?

Who will stop long enough ²⁰ 

to inquire about how you are doing? ²¹ 

Yeremia 23:18

23:18 Yet which of them has ever stood in the Lord’s inner circle ²² 

so they ²³  could see and hear what he has to say? ²⁴ 

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

Yeremia 23:28

23:28 Let the prophet who has had a dream go ahead and tell his dream. Let the person who has received my message report that message faithfully. What is like straw cannot compare to what is like grain! ²⁵  I, the Lord, affirm it! ²⁶ 

Yeremia 28:9

28:9 So if a prophet prophesied ²⁷  peace and prosperity, it was only known that the Lord truly sent him when what he prophesied came true.”

Yeremia 29:6

29:6 Marry and have sons and daughters. Find wives for your sons and allow your daughters get married so that they too can have sons and daughters. Grow in number; do not dwindle away.

Yeremia 33:21

33:21 could my covenant with my servant David and my covenant with the Levites ever be broken. So David will by all means always have a descendant to occupy his throne as king and the Levites will by all means always have priests who will minister before me. ²⁸ 

Yeremia 36:16

36:16 When they had heard it all, ²⁹  they expressed their alarm to one another. ³⁰  Then they said to Baruch, “We must certainly give the king a report about everything you have read!” ³¹ 

Yeremia 41:6

41:6 Ishmael son of Nethaniah went out from Mizpah to meet them. He was pretending to cry ³²  as he walked along. When he met them, he said to them, “Come with me to meet Gedaliah son of Ahikam.” ³³ 

Yeremia 44:29

44:29 Moreover the Lord says, ³⁴  ‘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. ³⁵ 

Yeremia 46:21

46:21 Even her mercenaries ³⁶ 

will prove to be like pampered, ³⁷  well-fed calves.

For they too will turn and run away.

They will not stand their ground

when ³⁸  the time for them to be destroyed comes,

the time for them to be punished.

Yeremia 49:4

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

Your power is ebbing away, ³⁹  you rebellious people of Ammon, ⁴⁰ 

who trust in your riches and say,

‘Who would dare to attack us?’

Yeremia 51:53

51:53 Even if Babylon climbs high into the sky ⁴¹ 

and fortifies her elevated stronghold, ⁴² 

I will send destroyers against her,” ⁴³ 

says the Lord. ⁴⁴ 

Yeremia 51:56

51:56 For a destroyer is attacking Babylon. ⁴⁵ 

Her warriors will be captured;

their bows will be broken. ⁴⁶ 

For the Lord is a God who punishes; ⁴⁷ 

he pays back in full. ⁴⁸ 

Yeremia 51:61

51:61 Then Jeremiah said to Seraiah, “When you arrive in Babylon, make sure ⁴⁹  you read aloud all these prophecies. ⁵⁰ 

[2:37]  ¹ tn Heb “with your hands on your head.” For the picture here see 2 Sam 13:19.

[2:37]  ² tn Heb “The Lord has rejected those you trust in; you will not prosper by/from them.”

[6:10]  ³ tn These words are not in the text but are supplied in the translation for clarity.

[6:10]  ⁴ tn Or “To whom shall I speak? To whom shall I give warning? Who will listen?” Heb “Unto whom shall I speak and give warning that they may listen?”

[6:10]  ⁵ tn Heb “are uncircumcised.”

[6:10]  ⁶ tn Heb “Behold!”

[6:10]  ⁷ tn Heb “They do not take pleasure in it.”

[8:9]  ⁸ tn Heb “be trapped.” However, the word “trapped” generally carries with it the connotation of divine judgment. See BDB 540 s.v. לָכַד Niph.2, and compare usage in Jer 6:11 for support. The verbs in the first two lines are again the form of the Hebrew verb that emphasizes that the action is as good as done (Hebrew prophetic perfects).

[10:20]  ⁹ tn Heb “My tent has been destroyed and my tent cords have been ripped apart.” For a very similar identification of Jeremiah’s plight with the plight of the personified community see 4:20 and the notes there.

[10:20]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “my children have gone from me and are no more.”

[10:20]  sn What is being referred to is the exile of the people of the land. This passage could refer to the exiles of 605 b.c., 597 b.c., or more probably be anticipatory of the exile of 588 b.c. since the “tent,” (i.e., the city) is pictured as torn down. The picture of devastation and desolation here should be contrasted with that in Isa 54:2-3.

[12:12]  ¹¹ tn Heb “destroyers.”

[12:12]  ¹² tn Heb “It is the Lord’s consuming sword.”

[12:12]  ¹³ tn Heb “For a sword of the Lord will devour.” The sword is often symbolic for destructive forces of all kinds. Here and in Isa 34:6; Jer 47:6 it is symbolic of the enemy armies that the Lord uses to carry out destructive punishment against his enemies, hence the translation “his destructive weapon.” A similar figure is use in Isa 10:5 where the figure is more clearly identified; Assyria is the rod/club that the Lord will use to discipline unfaithful Israel.

[12:12]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “There is no peace to all flesh.”

[13:19]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “The towns of the Negev will be shut.”

[13:19]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “There is no one to open them.” The translation is based on the parallel in Josh 6:1 where the very expression in the translation is used. Opening the city would have permitted entrance (of relief forces) as well as exit (of fugitives).

[13:19]  ¹⁷ sn The statements are poetic exaggerations (hyperbole), as most commentaries note. Even in the exile of 587 b.c. not “all” of the people of Jerusalem or of Judah were exiled. Cf. the context of 2 Kgs 24:14-16 again.

[15:5]  ¹⁸ tn The words “The Lord cried out” are not in the text. However, they are necessary to show the shift in address between speaking to Jeremiah in vv. 1-4 about the people and addressing Jerusalem in vv. 5-6 and the shift back to the address to Jeremiah in vv. 7-9. The words “oracle of the Lord” are, moreover, found at the beginning of v. 6.

[15:5]  ¹⁹ tn The words, “in the world” are not in the text but are the translator’s way of trying to indicate that this rhetorical question expects a negative answer.

[15:5]  ²⁰ tn Heb “turn aside.”

[15:5]  ²¹ tn Or “about your well-being”; Heb “about your welfare” (שָׁלוֹם, shalom).

[23:18]  ²² 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]  ²³ 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]  ²⁴ 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.

[23:28]  ²⁵ tn Heb “What to the straw with [in comparison with] the grain?” This idiom represents an emphatic repudiation or denial of relationship. See, for example, the usage in 2 Sam 16:10 and note BDB 553 s.v. מָה 1.d(c).

[23:28]  ²⁶ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[28:9]  ²⁷ tn The verbs in this verse are to be interpreted as iterative imperfects in past time rather than as futures because of the explicit contrast that is drawn in the two verses by the emphatic syntactical construction of the two verses. Both verses begin with a casus pendens construction to throw the two verses into contrast: Heb “The prophets who were before me and you from ancient times, they prophesied…The prophet who prophesied peace, when the word of that prophet came true, that prophet was known that the Lord truly sent him.”

[33:21]  ²⁸ tn The very complex and elliptical syntax of the original Hebrew of vv. 20-21 has been broken down to better conform with contemporary English style. The text reads somewhat literally (after the addition of a couple of phrases which have been left out by ellipsis): “Thus says the Lord, ‘If you can break my covenant with the day and my covenant with the night so that there is not to be daytime and night in their proper time then also my covenant can be broken with my servant David so that there is not to him a son reigning upon his throne [and also my covenant can be broken] with the Levites [so there are not] priests who minister to me.” The two phrases in brackets are elliptical, the first serving double duty for the prepositional phrase “with the Levites” as well as “with David” and the second serving double duty with the noun “priests” which parallels “a son.” The noun “priests” is not serving here as appositional because that phrase is always “the priests, the Levites,” never “the Levites, the priests.”

[33:21]  sn This refers to a reaffirmation of the Davidic covenant (cf., e.g., 2 Sam 7:11-16, 25-29; Ps 89:3-4, 19-29) and God’s covenant with the Levites (cf. Num 25:10-13; Mal 2:4-6; Deut 32:8-11).

[36:16]  ²⁹ tn Heb “all the words.”

[36:16]  ³⁰ 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]  ³¹ 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.”

[41:6]  ³² tn Heb “he was weeping/crying.” The translation is intended to better reflect the situation.

[41:6]  ³³ tn Heb “Come to Gedaliah the son of Ahikam.” The words that are supplied in the translation are implicit to the situation and are added for clarity.

[44:29]  ³⁴ tn Heb “oracle of the Lord.”

[44:29]  ³⁵ 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.

[46:21]  ³⁶ tn Heb “her hirelings in her midst.”

[46:21]  ³⁷ tn The word “pampered” is not in the text. It is supplied in the translation to explain the probable meaning of the simile. The mercenaries were well cared for like stall-fed calves, but in the face of the danger they will prove no help because they will turn and run away without standing their ground. Some see the point of the simile to be that they too are fattened for slaughter. However, the next two lines do not fit that interpretation too well.

[46:21]  ³⁸ tn The temporal use of the particle כִּי (ki; BDB 472 s.v. כִּי 2.a) seems more appropriate to the context than the causal use.

[49:4]  ³⁹ 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]  ⁴⁰ 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.

[51:53]  ⁴¹ tn Or “ascends [into] heaven.” Note the use of the phrase in Deut 30:12; 2 Kgs 2:11; and Amos 9:2.

[51:53]  ⁴² tn Heb “and even if she fortifies her strong elevated place.”

[51:53]  ⁴³ tn Heb “from me destroyers will go against her.”

[51:53]  ⁴⁴ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[51:56]  ⁴⁵ tn Heb “for a destroyer is coming against her, against Babylon.”

[51:56]  ⁴⁶ tn The Piel form (which would be intransitive here, see GKC 142 §52.k) should probably be emended to Qal.

[51:56]  ⁴⁷ tn Or “God of retribution.”

[51:56]  ⁴⁸ 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.”

[51:61]  ⁴⁹ tn Heb “see [that].”

[51:61]  ⁵⁰ tn Heb “words” (or “things”).