Jeremiah 16:12-15

16:12 And you have acted even more wickedly than your ancestors! Each one of you has followed the stubborn inclinations of your own wicked heart and not obeyed me. ¹  16:13 So I will throw you out of this land into a land that neither you nor your ancestors have ever known. There you must worship other gods day and night, for I will show you no mercy.’”

16:14 Yet ²  I, the Lord, say: ³  “A new time will certainly come. ⁴  People now affirm their oaths with ‘I swear as surely as the Lord lives who delivered the people of Israel out of Egypt.’ 16:15 But in that time they will affirm them with ‘I swear as surely as the Lord lives who delivered the people of Israel from the land of the north and from all the other lands where he had banished them.’ At that time I will bring them back to the land I gave their ancestors.” ⁵ 

¹ sn For the argumentation here compare Jer 7:23-26.

² tn The particle translated here “Yet” (לָכֵן, lakhen) is regularly translated “So” or “Therefore” and introduces a consequence. However, in a few cases it introduces a contrasting set of conditions. Compare its use in Judg 11:8; Jer 48:12; 49:2; 51:52; and Hos 2:14 (2:16 HT).

³ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.” The Lord has been speaking; the first person has been utilized in translation to avoid a shift which might create confusion.

⁴ tn Heb “Behold the days are coming.”

⁵ tn These two verses which constitute one long sentence with compound, complex subordinations has been broken up for sake of English style. It reads, “Therefore, behold the days are coming, says the Lord [Heb ‘oracle of the Lord’] and it will not be said any longer, ‘By the life of the Lord who…Egypt’ but ‘by the life of the Lord who…’ and I will bring them back….”