Jeremiah 23:16

23:16 The Lord who rules over all ¹  says to the people of Jerusalem: ² 

“Do not listen to what

those prophets are saying to you.

They are filling you with false hopes.

They are reporting visions of their own imaginations,

not something the Lord has given them to say. ³ 

Jeremiah 23:20

23:20 The anger of the Lord will not turn back

until he has fully carried out his intended purposes. ⁴ 

In days to come ⁵ 

you people will come to understand this clearly. ⁶ 

[23:16]  ¹ tn Heb “Yahweh of armies.”

[23:16]  ² tn The words “to the people of Jerusalem” are not in the Hebrew text but are supplied in the translation to reflect the masculine plural form of the imperative and the second masculine plural form of the pronoun. These words have been supplied in the translation for clarity.

[23:16]  ³ tn Heb “They tell of a vision of their own heart [= mind] not from the mouth of the Lord.”

[23:20]  ⁴ tn Heb “until he has done and until he has carried out the purposes of his heart.”

[23:20]  ⁵ tn Heb “in the latter days.” However, as BDB 31 s.v. אַחֲרִית b suggests, the meaning of this idiom must be determined from the context. Sometimes it has remote, even eschatological, reference and other times it has more immediate reference as it does here and in Jer 30:23 where it refers to the coming days of Babylonian conquest and exile.

[23:20]  ⁶ tn The translation is intended to reflect a Hebrew construction where a noun functions as the object of a verb from the same root word (the Hebrew cognate accusative).