Jeremiah 1:14

1:14 Then the Lord said, “This means ¹  destruction will break out from the north on all who live in the land.

Jeremiah 2:33

2:33 “My, how good you have become

at chasing after your lovers! ² 

Why, you could even teach prostitutes a thing or two! ³ 

Jeremiah 3:5

3:5 You will not always be angry with me, will you?

You will not be mad at me forever, will you?’ ⁴ 

That is what you say,

but you continually do all the evil that you can.” ⁵ 

Jeremiah 4:14

4:14 “Oh people of Jerusalem, purify your hearts from evil ⁶ 

so that you may yet be delivered.

How long will you continue to harbor up

wicked schemes within you?

Jeremiah 6:29

6:29 The fiery bellows of judgment burn fiercely.

But there is too much dross to be removed. ⁷ 

The process of refining them has proved useless. ⁸ 

The wicked have not been purged.

Jeremiah 11:23

11:23 Not one of them will survive. ⁹  I will bring disaster on those men from Anathoth who threatened you. ¹⁰  A day of reckoning is coming for them.” ¹¹ 

Jeremiah 18:12

18:12 But they just keep saying, ‘We do not care what you say! ¹²  We will do whatever we want to do! We will continue to behave wickedly and stubbornly!’” ¹³ 

Jeremiah 23:11

23:11 Moreover, ¹⁴  the Lord says, ¹⁵ 

“Both the prophets and priests are godless.

I have even found them doing evil in my temple!

Jeremiah 23:22

23:22 But if they had stood in my inner circle, ¹⁶ 

they would have proclaimed my message to my people.

They would have caused my people to turn from their wicked ways

and stop doing the evil things they are doing.

Jeremiah 25:7

25:7 So, now the Lord says, ¹⁷  ‘You have not listened to me. But ¹⁸  you have made me angry by the things that you have done. ¹⁹  Thus you have brought harm on yourselves.’

Jeremiah 44:5

44:5 But the people of Jerusalem and Judah ²⁰  would not listen or pay any attention. They would not stop the wickedness they were doing nor quit sacrificing to other gods. ²¹ 

[1:14]  ¹ tn There is nothing in the Hebrew text for these words but it is implicit in the connection. Once again the significance of the vision is spelled out. Compare the translator’s note on v. 12.

[2:33]  ² tn Heb “How good you have made your ways to seek love.”

[2:33]  ³ tn Heb “so that even the wicked women you teach your ways.”

[3:5]  ³ tn Heb “Will he keep angry forever? Will he maintain [it] to the end?” The questions are rhetorical and expect a negative answer. The change to direct address in the English translation is intended to ease the problem of the rapid transition, common in Hebrew style (but not in English), from second person direct address in the preceding lines to third person indirect address in these two lines. See GKC 462 §144.p.

[3:5]  ⁴ tn Heb “You do the evil and you are able.” This is an example of hendiadys, meaning “You do all the evil that you are able to do.”

[4:14]  ⁴ tn Heb “Oh, Jerusalem, wash your heart from evil.”

[6:29]  ⁵ tn Heb “The bellows blow fiercely; the lead is consumed by the fire.” The translation tries to clarify a metaphor involving ancient metallurgy. In the ancient refining process lead was added as a flux to remove impurities from silver ore in the process of oxidizing the lead. Jeremiah says that the lead has been used up and the impurities have not been removed. The translation is based on the recognition of an otherwise unused verb root meaning “blow” (נָחַר [nakhar]; cf. BDB 1123 s.v. I חָרַר and HALOT 651 s.v. נָחַר) and the Masoretes’ suggestion that the consonants מאשׁתם be read מֵאֵשׁ תַּם (me’esh tam) rather than as מֵאֶשָּׁתָם (me’eshatam, “from their fire”) from an otherwise unattested noun אֶשָּׁה (’eshah).

[6:29]  ⁶ tn Heb “The refiner refines them in vain.”

[11:23]  ⁶ tn Heb “There will be no survivors for/among them.”

[11:23]  ⁷ tn Heb “the men of Anathoth.” For the rationale for adding the qualification see the notes on v. 21.

[11:23]  ⁸ tn Heb “I will bring disaster on…, the year of their punishment.”

[18:12]  ⁷ tn Heb “It is useless!” See the same expression in a similar context in Jer 2:25.

[18:12]  ⁸ tn Heb “We will follow our own plans and do each one according to the stubbornness of his own wicked heart.”

[23:11]  ⁸ tn The particle כִּי (ki) which begins this verse is parallel to the one at the beginning of the preceding verse. However, the connection is too distant to render it “for.” “Moreover” is intended to draw the parallel. The words “the Lord says” (Heb “Oracle of the Lord”) have been drawn up to the front to introduce the shift in speaker from Jeremiah, who describes his agitated state, to God, who describes the sins of the prophets and priests and his consequent judgment on them.

[23:11]  ⁹ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[23:22]  ⁹ tn Or “had been my confidant.” See the note on v. 18.

[25:7]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[25:7]  ¹¹ tn This is a rather clear case where the Hebrew particle לְמַעַן (lÿma’an) introduces a consequence and not a purpose, contrary to the dictum of BDB 775 s.v. מַעַן note 1. They have not listened to him in order to make him angry but with the result that they have made him angry by going their own way. Jeremiah appears to use this particle for result rather than purpose on several other occasions (see, e.g., 7:18, 19; 27:10, 15; 32:29).

[25:7]  ¹² tn Heb “make me angry with the work of your hands.” The term “work of your own hands” is often interpreted as a reference to idolatry as is clearly the case in Isa 2:8; 37:19. However, the parallelism in 25:14 and the context in 32:30 show that it is more general and refers to what they have done. That is likely the meaning here as well.

[44:5]  ¹¹ tn There appears to be a deliberate shift in the pronouns used in vv. 2-5. “You” refers to the people living in Egypt who are being addressed (v. 2) and to the people of present and past generations to whom the Lord persistently sent the prophets (v. 4). “They” refers to the people of Jerusalem and the towns of Judah who have suffered disaster (v. 2) because of the wickedness of sacrificing to other gods (vv. 3, 5). The referents have been explicitly identified in the translation for the sake of clarity.

[44:5]  ¹² tn Heb “They did not listen or incline their ear [= pay attention] by turning from their wickedness by not sacrificing to other gods.” The לְ (lamed) + the negative + the infinitive is again epexegetical. The sentence has been restructured and more idiomatic English expressions have been used to better conform with contemporary English style but an attempt has been made to retain the basic relationships of subordination.