Jeremiah 7:25-26

7:25 From the time your ancestors departed the land of Egypt until now, ¹  I sent my servants the prophets to you again and again, ²  day after day. ³  7:26 But your ancestors ⁴  did not listen to me nor pay attention to me. They became obstinate ⁵  and were more wicked than even their own forefathers.’”

Jeremiah 11:8-10

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.’” ⁶ 

11:9 The Lord said to me, “The people of Judah and the citizens of Jerusalem have plotted rebellion against me! ⁷  11:10 They have gone back to the evil ways ⁸  of their ancestors of old who refused to obey what I told them. They, too, have paid allegiance to ⁹  other gods and worshiped them. Both the nation of Israel and the nation of Judah ¹⁰  have violated the covenant I made with their ancestors.

Jeremiah 32:30

32:30 This will happen because the people of Israel and Judah have repeatedly done what displeases me ¹¹  from their earliest history until now ¹²  and because they ¹³  have repeatedly made me angry by the things they have done. ¹⁴  I, the Lord, affirm it! ¹⁵ 

Jeremiah 32:1

Jeremiah Buys a Field

32:1 In the tenth year that Zedekiah was ruling over Judah the Lord spoke to Jeremiah. ¹⁶  That was the same as the eighteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar.

Jeremiah 8:7-8

8:7 Even the stork knows

when it is time to move on. ¹⁷ 

The turtledove, swallow, and crane ¹⁸ 

recognize ¹⁹  the normal times for their migration.

But my people pay no attention

to ²⁰  what I, the Lord, require of them. ²¹ 

8:8 How can you say, “We are wise!

We have the law of the Lord”?

The truth is, ²²  those who teach it ²³  have used their writings

to make it say what it does not really mean. ²⁴ 

Jeremiah 8:2

8:2 They will be spread out and exposed to the sun, the moon and the stars. ²⁵  These are things they ²⁶  adored and served, things to which they paid allegiance, ²⁷  from which they sought guidance, and worshiped. The bones of these people ²⁸  will never be regathered and reburied. They will be like manure used to fertilize the ground. ²⁹ 

Jeremiah 17:13-14

17:13 You are the one in whom Israel may find hope. ³⁰ 

All who leave you will suffer shame.

Those who turn away from you ³¹  will be consigned to the nether world. ³² 

For they have rejected you, the Lord, the fountain of life. ³³ 

17:14 Lord, grant me relief from my suffering

so that I may have some relief.

Rescue me from those who persecute me

so that I may be rescued. ³⁴ 

Jeremiah 17:2

17:2 Their children are always thinking about ³⁵  their ³⁶  altars

and their sacred poles dedicated to the goddess Asherah, ³⁷ 

set up beside the green trees on the high hills

Jeremiah 36:16

36:16 When they had heard it all, ³⁸  they expressed their alarm to one another. ³⁹  Then they said to Baruch, “We must certainly give the king a report about everything you have read!” ⁴⁰ 

Nehemiah 9:30

9:30 You prolonged your kindness ⁴¹  with them for many years, and you solemnly admonished them by your Spirit through your prophets. Still they paid no attention, ⁴²  so you delivered them into the hands of the neighboring peoples. ⁴³ 

Ezekiel 20:4

20:4 “Are you willing to pronounce judgment? ⁴⁴  Are you willing to pronounce judgment, son of man? Then confront them with the abominable practices of their fathers,

Ezekiel 20:8

20:8 But they rebelled against me, and refused to listen to me; no one got rid of their detestable idols, ⁴⁵  nor did they abandon the idols of Egypt. Then I decided to pour out ⁴⁶  my rage on them and fully vent my anger against them in the midst of the land of Egypt.

Zechariah 7:11-12

7:11 “But they refused to pay attention, turning away stubbornly and stopping their ears so they could not hear. 7:12 Indeed, they made their heart as hard as diamond, ⁴⁷  so that they could not obey the Torah and the other words the Lord who rules over all had sent by his Spirit through the former prophets. Therefore, the Lord who rules over all had poured out great wrath.

[7:25]  ¹ tn Heb “from the day your ancestors…until this very day.” However, “day” here is idiomatic for “the present time.”

[7:25]  ² tn On the Hebrew idiom see the note at 7:13.

[7:25]  ³ tc There is some textual debate about the legitimacy of this expression here. The text reads merely “day” (יוֹם, yom). BHS suggests the word is to be deleted as a dittography of the plural ending of the preceding word. The word is in the Greek and Latin, and the Syriac represents the typical idiom “day after day” as though the noun were repeated. Either יוֹם has dropped out by haplography or a ם (mem) has been left out, i.e., reading יוֹמָם (yomam, “daily”).

[7:26]  ⁴ tn Or “But your predecessors…”; Heb “But they….” There is a confusing interchange in the pronouns in vv. 25-26 which has led to some leveling in the ancient versions and the modern English versions. What is involved here are four levels of referents, the “you” of the present generation (vv. 21-22a), the ancestors who were delivered from Egypt (i.e., the “they” of vv. 22b-24), the “you” of v. 25 which involves all the Israelites from the Exodus to the time of speaking, and the “they” of v. 26 which cannot be the ancestors of vv. 22-24 (since they cannot be more wicked than themselves) but must be an indefinite entity which is a part of the “you” of v. 25, i.e., the more immediate ancestors of the present generation. If this is kept in mind, there is no need to level the pronouns to “they” and “them” or to “you” and “your” as some of the ancient versions and modern English versions have done.

[7:26]  ⁵ tn Heb “hardened [or made stiff] their neck.”

[11:8]  ⁶ 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.

[11:9]  ⁷ tn Heb “Conspiracy [a plot to rebel] is found [or exists] among the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem.”

[11:10]  ⁸ tn Or “They have repeated the evil actions of….”

[11:10]  ⁹ tn Heb “have walked/followed after.” See the translator’s note at 2:5 for the idiom.

[11:10]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “house of Israel and house of Judah.”

[32:30]  ¹¹ tn Heb “that which is evil in my eyes.” For this idiom see BDB 744 s.v. עַיִן 3.c and compare usage in 18:10.

[32:30]  ¹² tn Heb “from their youth.”

[32:30]  ¹³ tn Heb “the people of Israel.” However, since “people of Israel” has been used in the preceding line for the northern kingdom as opposed to the kingdom of Judah, it might lead to confusion to translate literally. Moreover, the pronoun “they” accomplishes the same purpose.

[32:30]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “by the work of their hands.” See the translator’s note on 25:6 and the parallelism in 25:14 for this rendering rather than referring it to the making of idols as in 1:16; 10:3.

[32:30]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[32:1]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “The word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord in the eleventh year of…” See 7:1; 11:1; 18:1; 21:1; 30:1 for this same formula.

[8:7]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “its appointed time.” The translation is contextually motivated to avoid lack of clarity.

[8:7]  ¹⁸ tn There is debate in the commentaries and lexicons about the identification of some of these birds, particularly regarding the identification of the “swallow” which is more likely the “swift” and the “crane” which some identify with the “thrush.” For a discussion see the Bible encyclopedias and the UBS handbook Fauna and Flora of the Bible. The identity of the individual birds makes little difference to the point being made and “swallow” is more easily identifiable to the average reader than the “swift.”

[8:7]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “keep.” Ironically birds, which do not think, obey the laws of nature, but Israel does not obey the laws of God.

[8:7]  ²⁰ tn Heb “do not know.” But here as elsewhere the word “know” is more than an intellectual matter. It is intended here to summarize both “know” and “follow” (Heb “observe”) in the preceding lines.

[8:7]  ²¹ tn Heb “the ordinance/requirement of the Lord.”

[8:8]  ²² tn Heb “Surely, behold!”

[8:8]  ²³ tn Heb “the scribes.”

[8:8]  ²⁴ tn Heb “The lying pen of the scribes have made [it] into a lie.” The translation is an attempt to make the most common interpretation of this passage understandable for the average reader. This is, however, a difficult passage whose interpretation is greatly debated and whose syntax is capable of other interpretations. The interpretation of the NJPS, “Assuredly, for naught has the pen labored, for naught the scribes,” surely deserves consideration within the context; i.e. it hasn’t done any good for the scribes to produce a reliable copy of the law, which the people have refused to follow. That interpretation has the advantage of explaining the absence of an object for the verb “make” or “labored” but creates a very unbalanced poetic couplet.

[8:2]  ²⁵ tc MT, 4QJer^a and LXX read “the sun and the moon and all the host of heaven,” but 4QJer^c reads “the sun and all the stars.”

[8:2]  ²⁶ tn Heb “the sun, moon, and host of heaven which they…”

[8:2]  ²⁷ tn Heb “followed after.” See the translator’s note at 2:5 for the idiom.

[8:2]  ²⁸ tn Heb “they will not” but the referent is far enough removed that it might be ambiguous.

[8:2]  ²⁹ tn Heb “like dung/manure on the surface of the ground.”

[17:13]  ³⁰ tn Heb “O glorious throne, O high place from the beginning, O hope of Israel, O Lord.” Commentators and translators generally understand these four lines (which are three in the Hebrew original) as two predications, one eulogizing the temple and the other eulogizing God. However, that does not fit the context very well and does not take into account the nature of Jeremiah’s doxology in Jeremiah 16:19-20 (and compare also 10:6-7). There the doxology is context motivated, focused on God, and calls on relevant attributes in the form of metaphorical epithets. That fits nicely here as well. For the relevant parallel passages see the study note.

[17:13]  ³¹ tc The translation is based on an emendation suggested in W. L. Holladay, Jeremiah (Hermeneia), 1:500, n. b-b. The emendation involves following the reading preferred by the Masoretes (the Qere) and understanding the preposition with the following word as a corruption of the suffix on it. Thus the present translation reads וּסוּרֶיךָ אֶרֶץ (usurekha ’erets) instead of וּסוּרַי בָּאֶרֶץ (usuray ba’erets, “and those who leave me will be written in the earth”), a reading which is highly improbable since all the other pronouns are second singular.

[17:13]  ³² tn Or “to the world of the dead.” An alternative interpretation is: “will be as though their names were written in the dust”; Heb “will be written in the dust.” The translation follows the nuance of “earth” listed in HALOT 88 s.v. אֶרֶץ 4 and found in Jonah 2:6 (2:7 HT); Job 10:21-22. For the nuance of “enrolling, registering among the number” for the verb translated here “consign” see BDB 507 s.v. כָּתַב Qal.3 and 508 s.v. Niph.2 and compare usage in Ezek 13:9 and Ps 69:28 (69:29 HT).

[17:13]  ³³ tn Heb “The fountain of living water.” For an earlier use of this metaphor and the explanation of it see Jer 2:13 and the notes there. There does not appear to be any way to retain this metaphor in the text without explaining it. In the earlier text the context would show that literal water was not involved. Here it might still be assumed that the Lord merely gives life-giving water.

[17:14]  ³⁴ tn The translation fills in the details of the metaphor from a preceding context (15:18) and from the following context (17:18). The literal translation “Heal me and I will be healed. Rescue me and I will be rescued.” does not make much sense if these details are not filled in. The metaphor is filled in for clarity for the average reader.

[17:2]  ³⁵ tn It is difficult to convey in good English style the connection between this verse and the preceding. The text does not have a finite verb but a temporal preposition with an infinitive: Heb “while their children remember their altars…” It is also difficult to translate the verb “literally.” (i.e., what does “remember” their altars mean?). Hence it has been rendered “always think about.” Another possibility would be “have their altars…on their minds.”

[17:2]  ³⁶ tc This reading follows many Hebrew mss and ancient versions. Many other Hebrew mss read “your” [masc. pl.].

[17:2]  ³⁷ sn Sacred poles dedicated to…Asherah. A leading deity of the Canaanite pantheon was Asherah, wife/sister of El and goddess of fertility. She was commonly worshiped at shrines in or near groves of evergreen trees, or, failing that, at places marked by wooden poles (Hebrew אֲשֵׁרִים [’asherim], plural). They were to be burned or cut down (Deut 7:5; 12:3; 16:21; Judg 6:25, 28, 30; 2 Kgs 18:4).

[36:16]  ³⁸ tn Heb “all the words.”

[36:16]  ³⁹ tn According to BDB 808 s.v. פָּחַד Qal.1 and 40 s.v. אֶל 3.a, this is an example of the “pregnant” use of a preposition where an implied verb has to be supplied in the translation to conform the normal range of the preposition with the verb that is governing it. The Hebrew text reads: “they feared unto one another.” BDB translates “they turned in dread to each other.” The translation adopted seems more appropriate in this context.

[36:16]  ⁴⁰ tn Heb “We must certainly report to the king all these things.” Here the word דְּבָרִים (dÿvarim) must mean “things” (cf. BDB 183 s.v. דָּבָר IV.3) rather than “words” because a verbatim report of all the words in the scroll is scarcely meant. The present translation has chosen to use a form that suggests a summary report of all the matters spoken about in the scroll rather than the indefinite “things.”

[9:30]  ⁴¹ tn The Hebrew expression here is elliptical. The words “your kindness” are not included in the Hebrew text, but have been supplied in the translation for clarity.

[9:30]  ⁴² tn Heb “did not give ear to.”

[9:30]  ⁴³ tn Heb “the peoples of the lands.”

[20:4]  ⁴⁴ tn Heb “will you judge.” Here the imperfect form of the verb is probably used with a desiderative nuance. Addressed to the prophet, “judge” means to warn of or pronounce God’s impending judgment.

[20:8]  ⁴⁵ tn Heb “each one, the detestable things of their eyes did not throw away.”

[20:8]  ⁴⁶ tn Heb “and I said/thought to pour out.”

[7:12]  ⁴⁷ tn The Hebrew term שָׁמִיר (shamir) means literally “hardness” and since it is said in Ezek 3:9 to be harder than flint, many scholars suggest that it refers to diamond. It is unlikely that diamond was known to ancient Israel, however, so probably a hard stone like emery or corundum is in view. The translation nevertheless uses “diamond” because in modern times it has become proverbial for its hardness. A number of English versions use “flint” here (e.g., NASB, NIV).