Jeremiah 7:20

7:20 So,” the Lord God ¹  says, “my raging fury will be poured out on this land. ²  It will be poured out on human beings and animals, on trees and crops. ³  And it will burn like a fire which cannot be extinguished.”

Jeremiah 12:3-4

12:3 But you, Lord, know all about me.

You watch me and test my devotion to you. ⁴ 

Drag these wicked men away like sheep to be slaughtered!

Appoint a time when they will be killed! ⁵ 

12:4 How long must the land be parched ⁶ 

and the grass in every field be withered?

How long ⁷  must the animals and the birds die

because of the wickedness of the people who live in this land? ⁸ 

For these people boast,

“God ⁹  will not see what happens to us.” ¹⁰ 

Jeremiah 33:12

33:12 “I, the Lord who rules over all, say: ¹¹  ‘This place will indeed lie in ruins. There will be no people or animals in it. But there will again be in it and in its towns sheepfolds where shepherds can rest their sheep.

Jeremiah 36:29

36:29 Tell King Jehoiakim of Judah, ‘The Lord says, “You burned the scroll. You asked ¹²  Jeremiah, ‘How dare you write in this scroll that the king of Babylon will certainly come and destroy this land and wipe out all the people and animals on it?’” ¹³ 

Genesis 6:7

6:7 So the Lord said, “I will wipe humankind, whom I have created, from the face of the earth – everything from humankind to animals, ¹⁴  including creatures that move on the ground and birds of the air, for I regret that I have made them.”

Isaiah 6:11

6:11 I replied, “How long, sovereign master?” He said,

“Until cities are in ruins and unpopulated,

and houses are uninhabited,

and the land is ruined and devastated,

Isaiah 24:1-6

The Lord Will Judge the Earth

24:1 Look, the Lord is ready to devastate the earth

and leave it in ruins;

he will mar its surface

and scatter its inhabitants.

24:2 Everyone will suffer – the priest as well as the people, ¹⁵ 

the master as well as the servant, ¹⁶ 

the elegant lady as well as the female attendant, ¹⁷ 

the seller as well as the buyer, ¹⁸ 

the borrower as well as the lender, ¹⁹ 

the creditor as well as the debtor. ²⁰ 

24:3 The earth will be completely devastated

and thoroughly ransacked.

For the Lord has decreed this judgment. ²¹ 

24:4 The earth ²²  dries up ²³  and withers,

the world shrivels up and withers;

the prominent people of the earth ²⁴  fade away.

24:5 The earth is defiled by ²⁵  its inhabitants, ²⁶ 

for they have violated laws,

disregarded the regulation, ²⁷ 

and broken the permanent treaty. ²⁸ 

24:6 So a treaty curse ²⁹  devours the earth;

its inhabitants pay for their guilt. ³⁰ 

This is why the inhabitants of the earth disappear, ³¹ 

and are reduced to just a handful of people. ³² 

Ezekiel 14:13

14:13 “Son of man, suppose a country sins against me by being unfaithful, and I stretch out my hand against it, cut off its bread supply, ³³  cause famine to come on it, and kill both people and animals.

Ezekiel 14:17

14:17 “Or suppose I were to bring a sword against that land and say, ‘Let a sword pass through the land,’ and I were to kill both people and animals.

Ezekiel 14:19

14:19 “Or suppose I were to send a plague into that land, and pour out my rage on it with bloodshed, killing both people and animals.

Ezekiel 14:21

14:21 “For this is what the sovereign Lord says: How much worse will it be when I send my four terrible judgments – sword, famine, wild animals, and plague – to Jerusalem ³⁴  to kill both people and animals!

Ezekiel 33:27

33:27 “This is what you must say to them, ‘This is what the sovereign Lord says: As surely as I live, those living in the ruins will die ³⁵  by the sword, those in the open field I will give to the wild beasts for food, and those who are in the strongholds and caves will die of disease.

Ezekiel 33:29

33:29 Then they will know that I am the Lord when I turn the land into a desolate ruin because of all the abominable deeds they have committed.’ ³⁶ 

Hosea 4:3

4:3 Therefore the land will mourn,

and all its inhabitants will perish. ³⁷ 

The wild animals, ³⁸  the birds of the sky,

and even the fish in the sea will perish.

Micah 3:12

3:12 Therefore, because of you, ³⁹  Zion will be plowed up like ⁴⁰  a field,

Jerusalem will become a heap of ruins,

and the Temple Mount ⁴¹  will become a hill overgrown with brush! ⁴² 

Zephaniah 1:3

1:3 “I will destroy people and animals;

I will destroy the birds in the sky

and the fish in the sea.

(The idolatrous images of these creatures will be destroyed along with evil people.) ⁴³ 

I will remove ⁴⁴  humanity from the face of the earth,” says the Lord.

Luke 21:24

21:24 They ⁴⁵  will fall by the edge ⁴⁶  of the sword and be led away as captives ⁴⁷  among all nations. Jerusalem ⁴⁸  will be trampled down by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled. ⁴⁹ 

[7:20]  ¹ tn Heb “Lord Yahweh.” The translation follows the ancient Jewish tradition of substituting the Hebrew word for God for the proper name Yahweh.

[7:20]  ² tn Heb “this place.” Some see this as a reference to the temple but the context has been talking about what goes on in the towns of Judah and Jerusalem and the words that follow, meant as a further explanation, are applied to the whole land.

[7:20]  ³ tn Heb “the trees of/in the field and the fruit of/in the ground.”

[12:3]  ⁴ tn Heb “You, Lord, know me. You watch me and you test my heart toward you.”

[12:3]  ⁵ tn Heb “set aside for them a day of killing.”

[12:4]  ⁶ tn The verb here is often translated “mourn.” However, this verb is from a homonymic root meaning “to be dry” (cf. HALOT 7 s.v. II אָבַל and compare Hos 4:3 for usage).

[12:4]  ⁷ tn The words “How long” are not in the text. They are carried over from the first line.

[12:4]  ⁸ tn Heb “because of the wickedness of those who live in it.”

[12:4]  ⁹ tn Heb “he.” The referent is usually identified as God and is supplied here for clarity. Some identify the referent with Jeremiah. If that is the case, then he returns to his complaint about the conspirators. It is more likely, however, that it refers to God and Jeremiah’s complaint that the people live their lives apart from concern about God.

[12:4]  ¹⁰ tc Or reading with the Greek version, “God does not see what we are doing.” In place of “what will happen to us (אַחֲרִיתֵנוּ, ’akharitenu, “our end”) the Greek version understands a Hebrew text which reads “our ways” (אָרְחוֹתֵנו, ’orkhotenu), which is graphically very close to the MT. The Masoretic is supported by the Latin and is retained here on the basis of external evidence. Either text makes good sense in the context. Some identify the “he” with Jeremiah and understand the text to be saying that the conspirators are certain that they will succeed and he will not live to see his prophecies fulfilled.

[33:12]  ¹¹ tn Heb “Thus says Yahweh of armies.” For the explanation for the first person introduction see the translator’s notes on 33:2, 10. Verses 4, 10, 12 introduce three oracles, all under the answer to the Lord’s promise to Jeremiah to show him “great and mysterious things which you still do not know about.”

[36:29]  ¹² tn Or “In essence you asked.” For explanation see the translator’s note on the end of the verse.

[36:29]  ¹³ tn Heb “You burned this scroll, saying, ‘Why did you write on it, saying, “The king of Babylon will certainly come [the infinitive absolute before the finite verb expresses certainty here as several places elsewhere in Jeremiah] and destroy this land and exterminate from it both man and beast.”’” The sentence raises several difficulties for translating literally. I.e., the “you” in “why did you write” is undefined, though it obviously refers to Jeremiah. The gerund “saying” that introduces ‘Why did you write’ does not fit very well with “you burned the scroll.” Gerunds of this sort are normally explanatory. Lastly, there is no indication in the narrative that Jehoiakim ever directly asked Jeremiah this question. In fact, he had been hidden out of sight so Jehoiakim couldn’t confront him. The question is presented rhetorically, expressing Jehoiakim’s thoughts or intents and giving the rational for burning the scroll, i.e., he questioned Jeremiah’s right to say such things. The translation has attempted to be as literal as possible without resolving some of these difficulties. One level of embedded quotes has been eliminated for greater simplicity. For the rendering of “How dare you” for the interrogative “why do you” see the translator’s note on 26:9.

[6:7]  ¹⁴ tn The text simply has “from man to beast, to creatures, and to birds of the air.” The use of the prepositions עַד…מִן (min...’ad) stresses the extent of the judgment in creation.

[24:2]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “and it will be like the people, like the priest.”

[24:2]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “like the servant, like his master.”

[24:2]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “like the female servant, like her mistress.”

[24:2]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “like the buyer, like the seller.”

[24:2]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “like the lender, like the borrower.”

[24:2]  ²⁰ tn Heb “like the creditor, just as the one to whom he lends.”

[24:3]  ²¹ tn Heb “for the Lord has spoken this word.”

[24:4]  ²² tn Some prefer to read “land” here, but the word pair אֶרֶץ/תֵּבֵל (erets/tevel [see the corresponding term in the parallel line]) elsewhere clearly designates the earth/world (see 1 Sam 2:8; 1 Chr 16:30; Job 37;12; Pss 19:4; 24:1; 33:8; 89:11; 90:2; 96:13; 98:9; Prov 8:26, 31; Isa 14:16-17; 34:1; Jer 10:12; 51:15; Lam 4:12). According to L. Stadelmann, תבל designates “the habitable part of the world” (The Hebrew Conception of the World [AnBib], 130).

[24:4]  ²³ tn Or “mourns” (BDB 5 s.v. אָבַל). HALOT 6-7 lists the homonyms I אבל (“mourn”) and II אבל (“dry up”). They propose the second here on the basis of parallelism.

[24:4]  ²⁴ tn Heb “the height of the people of the earth.” The translation assumes an emendation of the singular form מְרוֹם (mÿrom, “height of”) to the plural construct מְרֹמֵי (mÿrome, “high ones of”; note the plural verb at the beginning of the line), and understands the latter as referring to the prominent people of human society.

[24:5]  ²⁵ tn Heb “beneath”; cf. KJV, ASV, NRSV “under”; NAB “because of.”

[24:5]  ²⁶ sn Isa 26:21 suggests that the earth’s inhabitants defiled the earth by shedding the blood of their fellow human beings. See also Num 35:33-34, which assumes that bloodshed defiles a land.

[24:5]  ²⁷ tn Heb “moved past [the?] regulation.”

[24:5]  ²⁸ tn Or “everlasting covenant” (KJV, NASB, NIV, NRSV, NLT); NAB “the ancient covenant”; CEV “their agreement that was to last forever.”

[24:6]  ²⁹ sn Ancient Near Eastern treaties often had “curses,” or threatened judgments, attached to them. (See Deut 28 for a biblical example of such curses.) The party or parties taking an oath of allegiance acknowledged that disobedience would activate these curses, which typically threatened loss of agricultural fertility as depicted in the following verses.

[24:6]  ³⁰ tn The verb אָשַׁם (’asham, “be guilty”) is here used metonymically to mean “pay, suffer for one’s guilt” (see HALOT 95 s.v. אשׁם).

[24:6]  ³¹ tn BDB 359 s.v. חָרַר derives the verb חָרוּ (kharu) from חָרַר (kharar, “burn”), but HALOT 351 s.v. II חרה understands a hapax legomenon חָרָה (kharah, “to diminish in number,” a homonym of חָרָה) here, relating it to an alleged Arabic cognate meaning “to decrease.” The Qumran scroll 1QIsa^a has חורו, perhaps understanding the root as חָוַר (khavar, “grow pale”; see Isa 29:22 and HALOT 299 s.v. I חור).

[24:6]  ³² tn Heb “and mankind is left small [in number].”

[14:13]  ³³ tn Heb “break its staff of bread.”

[14:21]  ³⁴ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[33:27]  ³⁵ tn Heb “fall.”

[33:29]  ³⁶ sn The judgments of vv. 27-29 echo the judgments of Lev 26:22, 25.

[4:3]  ³⁷ tn Or “languish” (so KJV, NRSV); NIV “waste away.”

[4:3]  ³⁸ tn Heb “the beasts of the field” (so NAB, NIV).

[3:12]  ³⁹ tn The plural pronoun refers to the leaders, priests, and prophets mentioned in the preceding verse.

[3:12]  ⁴⁰ tn Or “into” (an adverbial accusative of result).

[3:12]  ⁴¹ tn Heb “the mountain of the house” (so KJV, ASV, NRSV).

[3:12]  ⁴² tn Heb “a high place of overgrowth.”

[1:3]  ⁴³ tn Heb “And the stumbling blocks [or, “ruins”] with the evil”; or “the things that make the evil stumble.” The line does not appear in the original form of the LXX; it may be a later scribal addition. The present translation assumes the “stumbling blocks” are idolatrous images of animals, birds, and fish. See J. J. M. Roberts, Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah (OTL), 167, and Adele Berlin, Zephaniah (AB), 73-74.

[1:3]  ⁴⁴ tn Heb “cut off.”

[21:24]  ⁴⁵ tn Here καί (kai) has not been translated because of differences between Greek and English style.

[21:24]  ⁴⁶ tn Grk “by the mouth of the sword” (an idiom for the edge of a sword).

[21:24]  ⁴⁷ sn Here is the predicted judgment against the nation until the time of Gentile rule has passed: Its people will be led away as captives.

[21:24]  ⁴⁸ tn Grk “And Jerusalem.” Here καί (kai) has not been translated because of differences between Greek and English style.

[21:24]  ⁴⁹ sn Until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled implies a time when Israel again has a central role in God’s plan.