Jeremiah 11:7-10

11:7 For I solemnly warned your ancestors to obey me. I warned them again and again, ever since I delivered them out of Egypt until this very day. 11:8 But they did not listen to me or pay any attention to me! Each one of them followed the stubborn inclinations of his own wicked heart. So I brought on them all the punishments threatened in the covenant because they did not carry out its terms as I commanded them to do.’”

11:9 The Lord said to me, “The people of Judah and the citizens of Jerusalem have plotted rebellion against me! 11:10 They have gone back to the evil ways of their ancestors of old who refused to obey what I told them. They, too, have paid allegiance to other gods and worshiped them. Both the nation of Israel and the nation of Judah have violated the covenant I made with their ancestors.

Jeremiah 22:9

22:9 The answer will come back, “It is because they broke their covenant with the Lord their God and worshiped and served other gods.”

Leviticus 26:15

26:15 if you reject my statutes and abhor my regulations so that you do not keep all my commandments and you break my covenant –

Deuteronomy 29:21

29:21 The Lord will single him out for judgment 10  from all the tribes of Israel according to all the curses of the covenant written in this scroll of the law.

Deuteronomy 31:16

31:16 Then the Lord said to Moses, “You are about to die, 11  and then these people will begin to prostitute themselves with the foreign gods of the land into which they 12  are going. They 13  will reject 14  me and break my covenant that I have made with them. 15 

Isaiah 24:5

24:5 The earth is defiled by 16  its inhabitants, 17 

for they have violated laws,

disregarded the regulation, 18 

and broken the permanent treaty. 19 

Ezekiel 16:59

16:59 “‘For this is what the sovereign Lord says: I will deal with you according to what you have done when you despised your oath by breaking your covenant.

Ezekiel 20:37

20:37 I will make you pass under 20  the shepherd’s staff, 21  and I will bring you into the bond of the covenant.

Hebrews 8:9

8:9It will not be like the covenant 22  that I made with their fathers, on the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they did not continue in my covenant and I had no regard for them, says the Lord.


tn Heb “warned them…saying, ‘Obey me.’” However, it allows the long sentence to be broken up easier if the indirect quote is used.

tn For the explanation for this rendering see the note on 7:13.

tn Heb “So I brought on them all the terms of this covenant which I commanded to do and they did not do.” There is an interesting polarity that is being exploited by two different nuances implicit in the use of the word “terms” (דִּבְרֵי [divre], literally “words”), i.e., what the Lord “brings on” them, namely, the curses that are the penalty for disobedience and the stipulations that they are “to do,” that is, to carry out. The sentence is broken up this way in keeping with contemporary English style to avoid the long and complicated style of the original.

tn Heb “Conspiracy [a plot to rebel] is found [or exists] among the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem.”

tn Or “They have repeated the evil actions of….”

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

tn Heb “house of Israel and house of Judah.”

tn Heb “to not do.”

tn Heb “set him apart.”

10 tn Heb “for evil”; NAB “for doom”; NASB “for adversity”; NIV “for disaster”; NRSV “for calamity.”

11 tn Heb “lie down with your fathers” (so NASB); NRSV “ancestors.”

12 tn Heb “he.” Smr, LXX, and the Targums read the plural “they,” which is necessary in any case in the translation because of contemporary English style. The third person singular also occurs in the Hebrew text twice more in this verse, three times in v. 17, once in v. 18, five times in v. 20, and four times in v. 21. Each time it is translated as third person plural for stylistic reasons.

13 tn Heb “he.” Smr, LXX, and the Targums read the plural “they.” See note on the first occurrence of “they” in v. 16.

14 tn Or “abandon” (TEV, NLT).

15 tn Heb “him.” Smr, LXX, and the Targums read the plural “them.” See note on the first occurrence of “they” in v. 16.

16 tn Heb “beneath”; cf. KJV, ASV, NRSV “under”; NAB “because of.”

17 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.

18 tn Heb “moved past [the?] regulation.”

19 tn Or “everlasting covenant” (KJV, NASB, NIV, NRSV, NLT); NAB “the ancient covenant”; CEV “their agreement that was to last forever.”

20 tn This is the same Hebrew verb used to describe the passing of the children through the fire.

21 sn The metaphor may be based in Lev 27:32 (see also Jer 33:13; Matt 25:32-33). A shepherd would count his sheep as they passed beneath his staff.

22 tn Grk “not like the covenant,” continuing the description of v. 8b.