Deuteronomy 4:19

4:19 When you look up ¹  to the sky ²  and see the sun, moon, and stars – the whole heavenly creation ³  – you must not be seduced to worship and serve them, ⁴  for the Lord your God has assigned ⁵  them to all the people ⁶  of the world. ⁷ 

Jeremiah 8:2

8:2 They will be spread out and exposed to the sun, the moon and the stars. ⁸  These are things they ⁹  adored and served, things to which they paid allegiance, ¹⁰  from which they sought guidance, and worshiped. The bones of these people ¹¹  will never be regathered and reburied. They will be like manure used to fertilize the ground. ¹² 

¹ tn Heb “lest you lift up your eyes.” In the Hebrew text vv. 16-19 are subordinated to “Be careful” in v. 15, but this makes for an unduly long sentence in English.

² tn Or “heavens.” The Hebrew term שָׁמַיִם (shamayim) may be translated “heaven(s)” or “sky” depending on the context.

³ tn Heb “all the host of heaven.”

⁴ tn In the Hebrew text the verbal sequence in v. 19 is “lest you look up…and see…and be seduced…and worship them…and serve them.” However, the first two actions are not prohibited in and of themselves. The prohibition pertains to the final three actions. The first two verbs describe actions that are logically subordinate to the following actions and can be treated as temporal or circumstantial: “lest, looking up…and seeing…, you are seduced.” See Joüon 2:635 §168.h.

⁵ tn Or “allotted.”

⁶ tn Or “nations.”

⁷ tn Heb “under all the heaven.”

⁸ tc MT, 4QJer^a and LXX read “the sun and the moon and all the host of heaven,” but 4QJer^c reads “the sun and all the stars.”

⁹ tn Heb “the sun, moon, and host of heaven which they…”

¹⁰ tn Heb “followed after.” See the translator’s note at 2:5 for the idiom.

¹¹ tn Heb “they will not” but the referent is far enough removed that it might be ambiguous.

¹² tn Heb “like dung/manure on the surface of the ground.”