Yeremia 7:16

7:16 Then the Lord said, ¹  “As for you, Jeremiah, ²  do not pray for these people! Do not cry out to me or petition me on their behalf! Do not plead with me to save them, ³  because I will not listen to you.

Yeremia 14:11

Judgment for Believing the Misleading Lies of the False Prophets

14:11 Then the Lord said to me, “Do not pray for good to come to these people! ⁴ 

Yeremia 29:12

29:12 When you call out to me and come to me in prayer, ⁵  I will hear your prayers. ⁶ 

Yeremia 32:16

Jeremiah’s Prayer of Praise and Bewilderment

32:16 “After I had given the copies of the deed of purchase to Baruch son of Neriah, I prayed to the Lord,

Yeremia 11:14

11:14 So, Jeremiah, ⁷  do not pray for these people. Do not cry out to me or petition me on their behalf. Do not plead with me to save them. ⁸  For I will not listen to them when they call out to me for help when disaster strikes them.” ⁹ 

Yeremia 29:7

29:7 Work to see that the city where I sent you as exiles enjoys peace and prosperity. Pray to the Lord for it. For as it prospers you will prosper.’

Yeremia 37:3

The Lord Responds to Zedekiah’s Hope for Help

37:3 King Zedekiah sent ¹⁰  Jehucal ¹¹  son of Shelemiah and the priest Zephaniah ¹²  son of Maaseiah to the prophet Jeremiah. He told them to say, “Please pray to the Lord our God on our behalf.”

Yeremia 42:2

42:2 They said to him, “Please grant our request ¹³  and pray to the Lord your God for all those of us who are still left alive here. ¹⁴  For, as you yourself can see, there are only a few of us left out of the many there were before. ¹⁵ 

Yeremia 42:20

42:20 You are making a fatal mistake. ¹⁶  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.’ ¹⁷ 

Yeremia 42:4

42:4 The prophet Jeremiah answered them, “Agreed! ¹⁸  I will indeed pray to the Lord your God as you have asked. I will tell you everything the Lord replies in response to you. ¹⁹  I will not keep anything back from you.”

Yeremia 18:19

18:19 Then I said, ²⁰ 

“Lord, pay attention to me.

Listen to what my enemies are saying. ²¹ 

Yeremia 36:7

36:7 Perhaps then they will ask the Lord for mercy and will all stop doing the evil things they have been doing. ²²  For the Lord has threatened to bring great anger and wrath against these people.” ²³ 

Yeremia 42:9

42:9 Then Jeremiah said to them, “You sent me to the Lord God of Israel to make your request known to him. Here is what he says to you: ²⁴ 

Yeremia 27:18

27:18 I also told them, ²⁵  “If they are really prophets and the Lord is speaking to them, ²⁶  let them pray earnestly to the Lord who rules over all. ²⁷  Let them plead with him not to let the valuable articles that are still left in the Lord’s temple, in the royal palace, and in Jerusalem be taken away ²⁸  to Babylon.

Yeremia 3:21

3:21 “A noise is heard on the hilltops.

It is the sound of the people of Israel crying and pleading to their gods.

Indeed they have followed sinful ways; ²⁹ 

they have forgotten to be true to the Lord their God. ³⁰ 

Yeremia 7:2

7:2 “Stand in the gate of the Lord’s temple and proclaim ³¹  this message: ‘Listen, all you people of Judah who have passed through these gates to worship the Lord. ³²  Hear what the Lord has to say.

Yeremia 31:16

31:16 The Lord says to her, ³³ 

“Stop crying! Do not shed any more tears! ³⁴ 

For your heartfelt repentance ³⁵  will be rewarded.

Your children will return from the land of the enemy.

I, the Lord, affirm it! ³⁶ 

Yeremia 51:62

51:62 Then say, ‘O Lord, you have announced that you will destroy this place so that no people or animals live in it any longer. Certainly it will lie desolate forever!’

Yeremia 11:20

11:20 So I said to the Lord, ³⁷ 

“O Lord who rules over all, ³⁸  you are a just judge!

You examine people’s hearts and minds. ³⁹ 

I want to see you pay them back for what they have done

because I trust you to vindicate my cause.” ⁴⁰ 

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? ⁴¹  Did not ⁴²  the Lord forgo destroying them ⁴³  as he threatened he would? But we are on the verge of bringing great disaster on ourselves.” ⁴⁴ 

Yeremia 31:9

31:9 They will come back shedding tears of contrition.

I will bring them back praying prayers of repentance. ⁴⁵ 

I will lead them besides streams of water,

along smooth paths where they will never stumble. ⁴⁶ 

I will do this because I am Israel’s father;

Ephraim ⁴⁷  is my firstborn son.’”

Yeremia 42:5

42:5 They answered Jeremiah, “May the Lord be a true and faithful witness against us if we do not do just as ⁴⁸  the Lord sends you to tell us to do.

[7:16]  ¹ tn The words “Then the Lord said” are not in the text but are supplied in the translation for clarity.

[7:16]  ² tn Heb “As for you.” The personal name Jeremiah is supplied in the translation for clarity.

[7:16]  ³ tn The words “to save them” are not in the text but are implicit from the context. They are supplied in the translation for clarity.

[14:11]  ⁴ tn Heb “on behalf of these people for benefit.”

[29:12]  ⁵ tn Heb “come and pray to me.” This is an example of verbal hendiadys where two verb formally joined by “and” convey a main concept with the second verb functioning as an adverbial qualifier.

[29:12]  ⁶ tn Or “You will call out to me and come to me in prayer and I will hear your prayers.” The verbs are vav consecutive perfects and can be taken either as unconditional futures or as contingent futures. See GKC 337 §112.kk and 494 §159.g and compare the usage in Gen 44:22 for the use of the vav consecutive perfects in contingent futures. The conditional clause in the middle of 29:13 and the deuteronomic theology reflected in both Deut 30:1-5 and 1 Kgs 8:46-48 suggest that the verbs are continent futures here. For the same demand for wholehearted seeking in these contexts which presuppose exile see especially Deut 30:2, 1 Kgs 8:48.

[11:14]  ⁷ tn Heb “you.”

[11:14]  ⁸ tn The words “to save them” are not in the text but are implicit from the context. They are supplied in the translation for clarity.

[11:14]  sn Cf. Jer 7:16 where this same command is addressed to Jeremiah.

[11:14]  ⁹ tc The rendering “when disaster strikes them” is based on reading “at the time of” (בְּעֵת, bÿ’et) with a number of Hebrew mss and the versions instead of “on account of” (בְּעַד, bÿ’ad). W. L. Holladay (Jeremiah [Hermeneia], 1:347) is probably right in assuming that the MT has been influenced by “for them” (בַעֲדָם, va’adam) earlier in the verse.

[37:3]  ¹⁰ sn This is the second of two delegations that Zedekiah sent to Jeremiah to ask him to pray for a miraculous deliverance. Both of them are against the background of the siege of Jerusalem which was instigated by Zedekiah’s rebelling against Nebuchadnezzar and sending to Egypt for help (cf. Ezek 17:15). The earlier delegation (21:1-2) was sent before Nebuchadnezzar had clamped down on Jerusalem because the Judean forces at that time were still fighting against the Babylonian forces in the open field (see 21:4 and the translator’s note there). Here the siege has been lifted because the Babylonian troops had heard a report that the Egyptian army was on the way into Palestine to give the Judeans the promised aid (vv. 5, 7). The request is briefer here than in 21:2 but the intent is no doubt the same (see also the study note on 21:2).

[37:3]  ¹¹ sn Jehucal was one of the officials who later sought to have Jeremiah put to death for what they considered treason (38:1-4).

[37:3]  ¹² sn The priest Zephaniah son of Maaseiah was a member of the earlier delegation (21:2) and the chief of security in the temple to whom the Babylonian false prophet wrote a letter complaining that Jeremiah should be locked up for his treasonous prophecies (29:25-26). See the study notes on 21:2 and 29:25 for further details.

[42:2]  ¹³ tn Heb “please let our petition fall before you.” For the idiom here see 37:20 and the translator’s note there.

[42:2]  ¹⁴ 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]  ¹⁵ 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.

[42:20]  ¹⁶ 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]  ¹⁷ 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.

[42:4]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “I have heard” = “I agree.” For this nuance of the verb see BDB 1034 s.v. שָׁמַע Qal.1.j and compare the usage in Gen 37:27 and Judg 11:17 listed there.

[42:4]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “all the word which the Lord will answer you.

[18:19]  ²⁰ tn The words “Then I said” are not in the text. They are supplied in the translation for clarity to show that Jeremiah turns from description of the peoples’ plots to his address to God to deal with the plotters.

[18:19]  ²¹ tn Heb “the voice of my adversaries.”

[18:19]  sn Jeremiah’s prayers against the unjust treatment of his enemies here and elsewhere (see 11:18-20; 12:1-4; 15:15-18; 17:14-18) have many of the elements of the prayers of the innocent in the book of Psalms: an invocation of the Lord as just judge, a lament about unjust attacks, an appeal to innocence, and a cry for vindication which often calls for the Lord to pay back in kind those who unjustly attack the petitioner. See for examples Pss 5, 7, 17, 54 among many others.

[36:7]  ²² tn Heb “will turn each one from his wicked way.”

[36:7]  ²³ tn Heb “For great is the anger and the wrath which the Lord has spoken against this people.” The translation uses the more active form which is more in keeping with contemporary English style.

[42:9]  ²⁴ tn Heb “Thus says the Lord God of Israel to whom you sent me to present your petition before him, ‘…’” The sentence has been restructured to cut down on the length of the introduction leading in to the long quote.

[42:9]  sn Their “request” is that Jeremiah would tell them where to go and what to do (v. 3).

[27:18]  ²⁵ tn The words “I also told them” are not in the text, but it is obvious from the fact that the Lord is spoken about in the third person in vv. 18, 19, 21 that he is not the speaker. This is part of Jeremiah’s own speech to the priests and the people (v. 16). These words are supplied in the translation for clarity.

[27:18]  ²⁶ tn Heb “the word of the Lord is with them.”

[27:18]  ²⁷ tn Heb “Yahweh of armies.”

[27:18]  sn For the significance of this title see the study note on 2:19.

[27:18]  ²⁸ tn Heb “…speaking to them, let them entreat the Lord…so that the valuable articles…will not go to Babylon.” The long original sentence has been broken up for the sake of English style.

[3:21]  ²⁹ tn Heb “A sound is heard on the hilltops, the weeping of the supplication of the children of Israel because [or indeed] they have perverted their way.” At issue here is whether the supplication is made to Yahweh in repentance because of what they have done or whether it is supplication to the pagan gods which is evidence of their perverted ways. The reference in this verse to the hilltops where idolatry was practiced according to 3:2 and the reference to Israel’s unfaithfulness in the preceding verse make the latter more likely. For the asseverative use of the Hebrew particle (here rendered “indeed”) where the particle retains some of the explicative nuance; cf. BDB 472-73 s.v. כִּי 1.e and 3.c.

[3:21]  ³⁰ tn Heb “have forgotten the Lord their God,” but in the view of the parallelism and the context, the word “forget” (like “know” and “remember”) involves more than mere intellectual activity.

[7:2]  ³¹ tn Heb “Proclaim there…” The adverb is unnecessary in English style.

[7:2]  ³² sn That is, all those who have passed through the gates of the outer court and are standing in the courtyard of the temple.

[31:16]  ³³ tn The words “to her” are not in the text but are implicit from the context. They are supplied in the translation for clarity.

[31:16]  ³⁴ tn Heb “Refrain your voice from crying and your eyes from tears.”

[31:16]  ³⁵ tn Heb “your work.” Contextually her “work” refers to her weeping and refusing to be comforted, that is, signs of genuine repentance (v. 15).

[31:16]  ³⁶ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[11:20]  ³⁷ tn The words “So I said to the Lord” are not in the text but are implicit from the context. They are supplied in the translation for clarity to show the shift in address.

[11:20]  ³⁸ tn Heb “Yahweh of armies.”

[11:20]  sn For the significance of the term see the notes at 2:19 and 7:3.

[11:20]  ³⁹ tn Heb “Lord of armies, just judge, tester of kidneys and heart.” The sentence has been broken up to avoid a long and complex English sentence. The translation is more in keeping with contemporary English style. In Hebrew thought the “kidneys” were thought of as the seat of the emotions and passions and the “heart” was viewed as the seat of intellect, conscience, and will. The “heart” and the “kidneys” are often used figuratively for the thoughts, emotions, motives, and drives that are thought to be seated in them.

[11:20]  ⁴⁰ tn Heb “Let me see your retribution [i.e., see you exact retribution] from them because I reveal my cause [i.e., plea for justice] to you.”

[26:19]  ⁴¹ 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]  ⁴² 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]  ⁴³ tn For the translation of the terms involved here see the translator’s note on 18:8.

[26:19]  ⁴⁴ 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.

[31:9]  ⁴⁵ tn Heb “They will come with weeping; I will bring them with supplication.” The ideas of contrition and repentance are implicit from the context (cf. vv. 18-19) and are supplied for clarity.

[31:9]  ⁴⁶ sn Jer 31:8-9 are reminiscent of the “New Exodus” motif of Isa 40-66 which has already been referred to in Jer 16:14-15; 23:7-8. See especially Isa 35:3-10; 40:3-5, 11; 41:17-20; 42:14-17; 43:16-21; 49:9-13. As there, the New Exodus will so outstrip the old that the old will pale in comparison and be almost forgotten (see Jer 23:7-8).

[31:9]  ⁴⁷ sn Ephraim was the second son of Joseph who was elevated to a place of prominence in the family of Jacob by the patriarch’s special blessing. It was the strongest tribe in northern Israel and Samaria lay in its territory. It is often used as a poetic parallel for Israel as here. The poetry is not speaking of two separate entities here; it is a way of repeating an idea for emphasis. Moreover, there is no intent to show special preference for northern Israel over Judah. All Israel is metaphorically God’s son and the object of his special care and concern (Exod 4:22; Deut 32:6).

[42:5]  ⁴⁸ tn Heb “do according to all the word which.”