Jeremiah 1:17

1:17 “But you, Jeremiah, ¹  get yourself ready! ²  Go and tell these people everything I instruct you to say. Do not be terrified of them, or I will give you good reason to be terrified of them. ³ 

Jeremiah 15:19-21

15:19 Because of this, the Lord said, ⁴ 

“You must repent of such words and thoughts!

If you do, I will restore you to the privilege of serving me. ⁵ 

If you say what is worthwhile instead of what is worthless,

I will again allow you to be my spokesman. ⁶ 

They must become as you have been.

You must not become like them. ⁷ 

15:20 I will make you as strong as a wall to these people,

a fortified wall of bronze.

They will attack you,

but they will not be able to overcome you.

For I will be with you to rescue you and deliver you,” ⁸ 

says the Lord.

15:21 “I will deliver you from the power of the wicked.

I will free you from the clutches of violent people.”

Ezekiel 2:7

2:7 You must speak my words to them whether they listen or not, for they are rebellious.

Ezekiel 3:17

3:17 “Son of man, I have appointed you a watchman ⁹  for the house of Israel. Whenever you hear a word from my mouth, you must give them a warning from me.

Matthew 3:8

3:8 Therefore produce fruit ¹⁰  that proves your ¹¹  repentance,

John 5:14

5:14 After this Jesus found him at the temple and said to him, “Look, you have become well. Don’t sin any more, ¹²  lest anything worse happen to you.”

¹ tn The name “Jeremiah” is not in the text. The use of the personal pronoun followed by the proper name is an attempt to reflect the correlative emphasis between Jeremiah’s responsibility noted here and the Lord’s promise noted in the next verse. The emphasis in the Hebrew text is marked by the presence of the subject pronouns at the beginning of each of the two verses.

² tn Heb “gird up your loins.” For the literal use of this idiom to refer to preparation for action see 2 Kgs 4:29; 9:1. For the idiomatic use to refer to spiritual and emotional preparation as here, see Job 38:3, 40:7, and 1 Pet 1:13 in the NT.

³ tn Heb “I will make you terrified in front of them.” There is a play on words here involving two different forms of the same Hebrew verb and two different but related prepositional phrases, “from before/of,” a preposition introducing the object of a verb of fearing, and “before, in front of,” a preposition introducing a spatial location.

⁴ tn Heb “So the Lord said thus.”

⁵ tn Heb “If you return [ = repent], I will restore [more literally, ‘cause you to return’] that you may stand before me.” For the idiom of “standing before” in the sense of serving see BDB 764 s.v. עָמַד Qal.1.e and compare the usage in 1 Kgs 10:8; 12:8; 17:1; Deut 10:8.

⁶ tn Heb “you shall be as my mouth.”

⁷ tn Heb “They must turn/return to you and you must not turn/return to them.”

⁸ sn See 1:18. The Lord renews his promise of protection and reiterates his call to Jeremiah.

⁹ tn The literal role of a watchman is described in 2 Sam 18:24; 2 Kgs 9:17.

¹⁰ sn Fruit worthy of repentance refers to the deeds that indicate a change of attitude (heart) on the part of John’s hearers.

¹¹ tn Grk “fruit worthy of.”

¹² tn Since this is a prohibition with a present imperative, the translation “stop sinning” is sometimes suggested. This is not likely, however, since the present tense is normally used in prohibitions involving a general condition (as here) while the aorist tense is normally used in specific instances. Only when used opposite the normal usage (the present tense in a specific instance, for example) would the meaning “stop doing what you are doing” be appropriate.