Isaiah 13:16

13:16 Their children will be smashed to pieces before their very eyes;

their houses will be looted

and their wives raped.

Jeremiah 20:6

20:6 You, Pashhur, and all your household ¹  will go into exile in Babylon. You will die there and you will be buried there. The same thing will happen to all your friends to whom you have prophesied lies.’” ² 

Jeremiah 28:12

28:12 But shortly after the prophet Hananiah had broken the yoke off the prophet Jeremiah’s neck, the Lord spoke to Jeremiah.

Jeremiah 28:16

28:16 So the Lord says, ‘I will most assuredly remove ³  you from the face of the earth. You will die this very year because you have counseled rebellion against the Lord.’” ⁴ 

Jeremiah 29:21

29:21 “The Lord God of Israel who rules over all ⁵  also has something to say about Ahab son of Kolaiah and Zedekiah son of Maaseiah, who are prophesying lies to you and claiming my authority to do so. ⁶  ‘I will hand them over to King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon and he will execute them before your very eyes.

Jeremiah 29:25

29:25 that the Lord God of Israel who rules over all ⁷  has a message for him. ⁸  Tell him, ⁹  ‘On your own initiative ¹⁰  you sent a letter ¹¹  to the priest Zephaniah son of Maaseiah ¹²  and to all the other priests and to all the people in Jerusalem. ¹³  In your letter you said to Zephaniah, ¹⁴ 

Jeremiah 29:31-32

29:31 “Send a message to all the exiles in Babylon. Tell them, ‘The Lord has spoken about Shemaiah the Nehelamite. “Shemaiah has spoken to you as a prophet even though I did not send him. He is making you trust in a lie. ¹⁵  29:32 Because he has done this,” ¹⁶  the Lord says, “I will punish Shemaiah the Nehelamite and his whole family. There will not be any of them left to experience the good things that I will do for my people. I, the Lord, affirm it! For he counseled rebellion against the Lord.”’” ¹⁷ 

Lamentations 5:11

5:11 They raped ¹⁸  women in Zion,

virgins in the towns of Judah.

Hosea 4:13-14

4:13 They sacrifice on the mountaintops,

and burn offerings on the hills;

they sacrifice ¹⁹  under oak, poplar, and terebinth,

because their shade is so pleasant.

As a result, your daughters have become cult prostitutes,

and your daughters-in-law commit adultery!

4:14 I will not punish your daughters when they commit prostitution,

nor your daughters-in-law when they commit adultery.

For the men consort with harlots,

they sacrifice with temple prostitutes.

It is true: ²⁰  “A people that lacks understanding will come to ruin!”

Zechariah 14:2

14:2 For I will gather all the nations against Jerusalem ²¹  to wage war; the city will be taken, its houses plundered, and the women raped. Then half of the city will go into exile, but the remainder of the people will not be taken away. ²² 

[20:6]  ¹ tn Heb “all who live in your house.” This included his family and his servants.

[20:6]  ² sn As a member of the priesthood and the protector of order in the temple, Pashhur was undoubtedly one of those who promulgated the deceptive belief that the Lord’s presence in the temple was a guarantee of Judah’s safety (cf. 7:4, 8). Judging from the fact that two other men held the same office after the leading men in the city were carried into exile in 597 b.c. (see Jer 29:25-26 and compare 29:1-2 for the date and 2 Kgs 24:12-16 for the facts), this prophecy was probably fulfilled in 597. For a similar kind of oracle of judgment see Amos 7:10-17.

[28:16]  ³ sn There is a play on words here in Hebrew between “did not send you” and “will…remove you.” The two verbs are from the same root word in Hebrew. The first is the simple active and the second is the intensive.

[28:16]  ⁴ sn In giving people false assurances of restoration when the Lord had already told them to submit to Babylon, Hananiah was really counseling rebellion against the Lord. What Hananiah had done was contrary to the law of Deut 13:6 and was punishable by death.

[29:21]  ⁵ tn Heb “Yahweh of armies, the God of Israel.”

[29:21]  ⁶ tn Heb “prophesying lies in my name.” For an explanation of this idiom see the study notes on 14:14 and 23:27.

[29:25]  ⁷ tn Heb “Yahweh of armies, the God of Israel.”

[29:25]  ⁸ tn Heb “Tell Shemaiah the Nehelamite, ‘Thus says Yahweh of armies the God of Israel….” The indirect quotation is used in the translation to avoid the complexity of embedding a quotation within a quotation.

[29:25]  ⁹ sn Jer 29:24-32 are concerned with Jeremiah’s interaction with a false prophet named Shemaiah. The narrative in this section is not in strict chronological order and is somewhat elliptical. It begins with a report of a message that Jeremiah appears to have delivered directly to Shemaiah and refers to a letter that Shemaiah sent to the priest Zephaniah encouraging him to reprimand Jeremiah for what Shemaiah considered treasonous words in his letter to the exiles (vv. 24-28; compare v. 28 with v. 5). However, Jeremiah is in Jerusalem and Shemaiah is in Babylon. The address must then be part of a second letter Jeremiah sent to Babylon. Following this the narrative refers to Zephaniah reading Shemaiah’s letter to Jeremiah and Jeremiah sending a further letter to the captives in Babylon (vv. 29-32). This is probably not a third letter but part of the same letter in which Jeremiah reprimands Shemaiah for sending his letter to Zephaniah (vv. 25-28; the same letter referred to in v. 29). The order of events thus is: Jeremiah sent a letter to the captives counseling them to settle down in Babylon (vv. 1-23). Shemaiah sent a letter to Zephaniah asking him to reprimand Jeremiah (vv. 26-28). After Zephaniah read that letter to Jeremiah (v. 29), Jeremiah wrote a further letter to Babylon reprimanding him (vv. 25-28, 31) and pronouncing judgment on him (v. 32). The elliptical nature of the narrative is reflected in the fact that vv. 25-27 are part of a long causal sentence which sets forth an accusation but has no corresponding main clause or announcement of judgment. This kind of construction involves a rhetorical figure (called aposiopesis) where what is begun is not finished for various rhetorical reasons. Here the sentence that is broken off is part of an announcement of judgment which is not picked up until v. 32 after a further (though related) accusation (v. 31b).

[29:25]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “In your [own] name.” See the study note on 23:27 for the significance of this idiom.

[29:25]  ¹¹ tn Heb “letters.” Though GKC 397 §124.b, n. 1 denies it, this is probably a case of the plural of extension. For a similar usage see Isa 37:14 where the plural “letters” is referred to later as an “it.” Even if there were other “letters,” the focus is on the letter to Zephaniah.

[29:25]  ¹² sn According to Jer 52:24 and 2 Kgs 25:18 Zephaniah son of Maaseiah was second in command to the high priest. He was the high ranking priest who was sent along with a civic official to inquire of the Lord’s will from Jeremiah by Zedekiah on two separate occasions (Jer 21:1; 37:3).

[29:25]  ¹³ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[29:25]  ¹⁴ tn The words “In your letter you said to Zephaniah” are not in the text: Heb “you sent a letter to…, saying.” The sentence has been broken up to conform better to contemporary English style and these words have been supplied in the translation to make the transition to the address to Zephaniah in vv. 26-28.

[29:31]  ¹⁵ tn Or “is giving you false assurances.”

[29:32]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “Therefore.”

[29:32]  ¹⁷ sn Compare the same charge against Hananiah in Jer 28:16 and see the note there. In this case, the false prophesy of Shemaiah is not given but it likely had the same tenor since he wants Jeremiah reprimanded for saying that the exile will be long and the people are to settle down in Babylon.

[5:11]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “ravished.”

[4:13]  ¹⁹ tn The phrase “they sacrifice” is not repeated in the Hebrew text here but is implied by parallelism; it is provided in the translation for the sake of clarity.

[4:14]  ²⁰ tn The words “it is true” are supplied in the translation to indicate that this is a conclusion drawn on the preceding behavior. Cf. NAB “So must a people”; NRSV “thus a people”; TEV “As the proverb says, ‘A people.’”

[14:2]  ²¹ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[14:2]  ²² tn Heb “not be cut off from the city” (so NRSV); NAB “not be removed.”