Jeremiah 2:30

2:30 “It did no good for me to punish your people.

They did not respond to such correction.

You slaughtered your prophets

like a voracious lion.” ¹ 

Jeremiah 7:28

7:28 So tell them: ‘This is a nation that has not obeyed the Lord their God and has not accepted correction. Faithfulness is nowhere to be found in it. These people do not even profess it anymore. ² 

Jeremiah 7:2

7:2 “Stand in the gate of the Lord’s temple and proclaim ³  this message: ‘Listen, all you people of Judah who have passed through these gates to worship the Lord. ⁴  Hear what the Lord has to say.

Jeremiah 28:1

Jeremiah Confronted by a False Prophet

28:1 The following events occurred in that same year, early in the reign of King Zedekiah of Judah. To be more precise, it was the fifth month of the fourth year of his reign. ⁵  The prophet Hananiah son of Azzur, who was from Gibeon, spoke to Jeremiah ⁶  in the Lord’s temple in the presence of the priests and all the people. ⁷ 

Proverbs 23:35

23:35 You will say, ⁸  “They have struck me, but I am not harmed!

They beat me, but I did not know it! ⁹ 

When will I awake? I will look for another drink.” ¹⁰ 

Proverbs 27:22

27:22 If you should pound ¹¹  the fool in the mortar

among the grain ¹²  with the pestle,

his foolishness would not depart from him. ¹³ 

Isaiah 1:5-6

1:5 ¹⁴ Why do you insist on being battered?

Why do you continue to rebel? ¹⁵ 

Your head has a massive wound, ¹⁶ 

your whole body is weak. ¹⁷ 

1:6 From the soles of your feet to your head,

there is no spot that is unharmed. ¹⁸ 

There are only bruises, cuts,

and open wounds.

They have not been cleansed ¹⁹  or bandaged,

nor have they been treated ²⁰  with olive oil. ²¹ 

Isaiah 9:13

9:13 The people did not return to the one who struck them,

they did not seek reconciliation ²²  with the Lord who commands armies.

Isaiah 42:25

42:25 So he poured out his fierce anger on them,

along with the devastation ²³  of war.

Its flames encircled them, but they did not realize it; ²⁴ 

it burned against them, but they did notice. ²⁵ 

Ezekiel 24:13

24:13 You mix uncleanness with obscene conduct. ²⁶ 

I tried to cleanse you, ²⁷  but you are not clean.

You will not be cleansed from your uncleanness ²⁸ 

until I have exhausted my anger on you.

Zephaniah 3:1-2

Jerusalem is Corrupt

3:1 The filthy, ²⁹  stained city is as good as dead;

the city filled with oppressors is finished! ³⁰ 

3:2 She is disobedient; ³¹ 

she refuses correction. ³² 

She does not trust the Lord;

she does not seek the advice of ³³  her God.

Zephaniah 3:7

3:7 I thought, ³⁴  ‘Certainly you will respect ³⁵  me!

Now you will accept correction!’

If she had done so, her home ³⁶  would not be destroyed ³⁷ 

by all the punishments I have threatened. ³⁸ 

But they eagerly sinned

in everything they did. ³⁹ 

[2:30]  ¹ tn Heb “Your sword devoured your prophets like a destroying lion.” However, the reference to the sword in this and many similar idioms is merely idiomatic for death by violent means.

[7:28]  ² tn Heb “Faithfulness has vanished. It is cut off from their lips.”

[7:2]  ³ tn Heb “Proclaim there…” The adverb is unnecessary in English style.

[7:2]  ⁴ sn That is, all those who have passed through the gates of the outer court and are standing in the courtyard of the temple.

[28:1]  ⁵ tc The original text is unusually full here and deemed by many scholars to be corrupt: Heb “And it happened in that year in the beginning of the reign of Zedekiah king of Judah, in the fourth year, in the fifth month Hananiah…said to…” Many scholars see a contradiction between “in the fourth year” and “in the beginning of the reign.” These scholars point to the fact that the Greek version does not have “in that year” and “in the beginning of the reign of”; it merely reads “in the fourth year of Zedekiah king of Judah, in the fifth month.” These scholars generally also regard the heading at 27:1 to be unoriginal and interpret the heading in the MT here as a faulty harmonization of the original (that in the Greek version) with the erroneous one in the Hebrew of 27:1. However, it is just as possible that the Greek version in both places is an attempt to harmonize the data of 27:1 and 28:1. I.e., it left out both the heading at 27:1, and “in that year” and “at the beginning of the reign of” in the heading here because it thought the data was contradictory. However, it is just as likely that there is really no contradiction here. I.e., the term “beginning of the reign” can include the fourth year. E. H. Merrill has argued that the term here refers not to the accession year (see the translator’s note on 26:1) but to the early years in general (“The ‘Accession Year’ and Davidic Chronology,” JANESCU 19 [1989]: 105-6, and cf. note 18 for bibliography on Akkadian parallels). Hence the phrase has been translated both here and in 27:1 “early in the reign of…” For other attempts at harmonization see the discussion in G. L. Keown, P. J. Scalise, T. G. Smothers, Jeremiah 26-52 (WBC), 41, n. 1a.

[28:1]  ⁶ tn Heb “to me.” The rest of the chapter is all in third person narrative (see vv. 5, 6, 10, 11, 12, 15). Hence, many explain the first person here as a misunderstanding of the abbreviation “to Jeremiah” (אֶל יִרְמִיָּה [’el yirmiyyah] = אֵלַי, [’elay]). It is just as likely that there is a similar kind of disjunction here that was found in 27:1-2 only in the opposite direction. There what started out as a third person report was really a first person report. Here what starts out as a first person report is really a third person report. The text betrays both the hands of the narrator, probably Baruch, and the reportee, Jeremiah, who dictated a synopsis of his messages and his stories to Baruch to write down (Jer 36:4, 32).

[28:1]  ⁷ tn Heb “And it happened in that year in the beginning of the reign of Zedekiah king of Judah, in the fourth year, in the fifth month, Hananiah son of Azzur the prophet who was from Gibeon said to me in…” The sentence has been broken up in conformity with contemporary English style and the flavor given in modern equivalent terms.

[23:35]  ⁸ tn The phrase “You will say” is supplied in the translation to make it clear that the drunkard is now speaking.

[23:35]  ⁹ sn The line describes how one who is intoxicated does not feel the pain, even though beaten by others. He does not even remember it.

[23:35]  ¹⁰ tn The last line has only “I will add I will seek it again.” The use of אוֹסִיף (’osif) signals a verbal hendiadys with the next verb: “I will again seek it.” In this context the suffix on the verb refers to the wine – the drunkard wants to go and get another drink.

[27:22]  ¹¹ tn The verb means “to pound” in a mortar with a pestle (cf. NRSV “Crush”; NLT “grind”). The imperfect is in a conditional clause, an unreal, hypothetical condition to make the point.

[27:22]  ¹² tn The Hebrew term רִיפוֹת (rifot) refers to some kind of grain spread out to dry and then pounded. It may refer to barley groats (coarsely ground barley), but others have suggested the term means “cheeses” (BDB 937 s.v.). Most English versions have “grain” without being more specific; NAB “grits.”

[27:22]  ¹³ tn The LXX contains this paraphrase: “If you scourge a fool in the assembly, dishonoring him, you would not remove his folly.” This removes the imagery of mortar and pestle from the verse. Using the analogy of pounding something in a mortar, the proverb is saying even if a fool was pounded or pulverized, meaning severe physical punishment, his folly would not leave him – it is too ingrained in his nature.

[1:5]  ¹⁴ sn In vv. 5-9 Isaiah addresses the battered nation (5-8) and speaks as their representative (9).

[1:5]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “Why are you still beaten? [Why] do you continue rebellion?” The rhetorical questions express the prophet’s disbelief over Israel’s apparent masochism and obsession with sin. The interrogative construction in the first line does double duty in the parallelism. H. Wildberger (Isaiah, 1:18) offers another alternative by translating the two statements with one question: “Why do you still wish to be struck that you persist in revolt?”

[1:5]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “all the head is ill”; NRSV “the whole head is sick”; CEV “Your head is badly bruised.”

[1:5]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “and all the heart is faint.” The “heart” here stands for bodily strength and energy, as suggested by the context and usage elsewhere (see Jer 8:18; Lam 1:22).

[1:6]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “there is not in it health”; NAB “there is no sound spot.”

[1:6]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “pressed out.”

[1:6]  ²⁰ tn Heb “softened” (so NASB, NRSV); NIV “soothed.”

[1:6]  ²¹ sn This verse describes wounds like those one would receive in battle. These wounds are comprehensive and without remedy.

[9:13]  ²² tn This verse describes the people’s response to the judgment described in vv. 11-12. The perfects are understood as indicating simple past.

[42:25]  ²³ tn Heb “strength” (so KJV, NASB); NAB “fury”; NASB “fierceness”; NIV “violence.”

[42:25]  ²⁴ tn Heb “and it blazed against him all around, but he did not know.” The subject of the third feminine singular verb “blazed” is the divine חֵמָה (khemah, “anger”) mentioned in the previous line.

[42:25]  ²⁵ tn Heb “and it burned against him, but he did not set [it] upon [the] heart.”

[24:13]  ²⁶ tn Heb “in your uncleanness (is) obscene conduct.”

[24:13]  ²⁷ tn Heb “because I cleansed you.” In this context (see especially the very next statement), the statement must refer to divine intention and purpose. Despite God’s efforts to cleanse his people, they resisted him and remained morally impure.

[24:13]  ²⁸ tn The Hebrew text adds the word “again.”

[3:1]  ²⁹ tn The present translation assumes מֹרְאָה (mor’ah) is derived from רֹאִי (ro’i,“excrement”; see Jastrow 1436 s.v. רֳאִי). The following participle, “stained,” supports this interpretation (cf. NEB “filthy and foul”; NRSV “soiled, defiled”). Another option is to derive the form from מָרָה (marah, “to rebel”); in this case the term should be translated “rebellious” (cf. NASB, NIV “rebellious and defiled”). This idea is supported by v. 2. For discussion of the two options, see HALOT 630 s.v. I מרא and J. J. M. Roberts, Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah (OTL), 206.

[3:1]  ³⁰ tn Heb “Woe, soiled and stained one, oppressive city.” The verb “is finished” is supplied in the second line. On the Hebrew word הוֹי (hoy, “ah, woe”), see the note on the word “dead” in 2:5.

[3:2]  ³¹ tn Heb “she does not hear a voice” Refusing to listen is equated with disobedience.

[3:2]  ³² tn Heb “she does not receive correction.” The Hebrew phrase, when negated, refers elsewhere to rejecting verbal advice (Jer 17:23; 32:33; 35:13) and refusing to learn from experience (Jer 2:30; 5:3).

[3:2]  ³³ tn Heb “draw near to.” The present translation assumes that the expression “draw near to” refers to seeking God’s will (see 1 Sam 14:36).

[3:7]  ³⁴ tn Heb “said.”

[3:7]  ³⁵ tn Or “fear.” The second person verb form (“you will respect”) is feminine singular, indicating that personified Jerusalem is addressed.

[3:7]  ³⁶ tn Or “dwelling place.”

[3:7]  ³⁷ tn Heb “cut off.”

[3:7]  ³⁸ tn Heb “all which I have punished her.” The precise meaning of this statement and its relationship to what precedes are unclear.

[3:7]  ³⁹ tn Heb “But they got up early, they made corrupt all their actions.” The phrase “they got up early” probably refers to their eagerness to engage in sinful activities.