Jeremiah 5:4-5

5:4 I thought, “Surely it is only the ignorant poor who act this way.

They act like fools because they do not know what the Lord demands.

They do not know what their God requires of them.

5:5 I will go to the leaders

and speak with them.

Surely they know what the Lord demands.

Surely they know what their God requires of them.”

Yet all of them, too, have rejected his authority

and refuse to submit to him.


tn Heb “Surely they are poor.” The translation is intended to make clear the explicit contrasts and qualifications drawn in this verse and the next.

tn Heb “the way of the Lord.”

tn Heb “the judgment [or ordinance] of their God.”

tn Or “people in power”; Heb “the great ones.”

tn Heb “the way of the Lord.”

tn Heb “the judgment [or ordinance] of their God.”

tn Heb “have broken the yoke and torn off the yoke ropes.” Compare Jer 2:20 and the note there.