Jeremiah 1:17-19

1:17 “But you, Jeremiah, ¹  get yourself ready! ²  Go and tell these people everything I instruct you to say. Do not be terrified of them, or I will give you good reason to be terrified of them. ³  1:18 I, the Lord, ⁴  hereby promise to make you ⁵  as strong as a fortified city, an iron pillar, and a bronze wall. You will be able to stand up against all who live in ⁶  the land, including the kings of Judah, its officials, its priests and all the people of the land. 1:19 They will attack you but they will not be able to overcome you, for I will be with you to rescue you,” says the Lord.

Jeremiah 15:19-21

15:19 Because of this, the Lord said, ⁷ 

“You must repent of such words and thoughts!

If you do, I will restore you to the privilege of serving me. ⁸ 

If you say what is worthwhile instead of what is worthless,

I will again allow you to be my spokesman. ⁹ 

They must become as you have been.

You must not become like them. ¹⁰ 

15:20 I will make you as strong as a wall to these people,

a fortified wall of bronze.

They will attack you,

but they will not be able to overcome you.

For I will be with you to rescue you and deliver you,” ¹¹ 

says the Lord.

15:21 “I will deliver you from the power of the wicked.

I will free you from the clutches of violent people.”

Ezekiel 2:6-7

2:6 But you, son of man, do not fear them, and do not fear their words – even though briers ¹²  and thorns ¹³  surround you and you live among scorpions – do not fear their words and do not be terrified of the looks they give you, ¹⁴  for they are a rebellious house! 2:7 You must speak my words to them whether they listen or not, for they are rebellious.

[1:17]  ¹ tn The name “Jeremiah” is not in the text. The use of the personal pronoun followed by the proper name is an attempt to reflect the correlative emphasis between Jeremiah’s responsibility noted here and the Lord’s promise noted in the next verse. The emphasis in the Hebrew text is marked by the presence of the subject pronouns at the beginning of each of the two verses.

[1:17]  ² tn Heb “gird up your loins.” For the literal use of this idiom to refer to preparation for action see 2 Kgs 4:29; 9:1. For the idiomatic use to refer to spiritual and emotional preparation as here, see Job 38:3, 40:7, and 1 Pet 1:13 in the NT.

[1:17]  ³ tn Heb “I will make you terrified in front of them.” There is a play on words here involving two different forms of the same Hebrew verb and two different but related prepositional phrases, “from before/of,” a preposition introducing the object of a verb of fearing, and “before, in front of,” a preposition introducing a spatial location.

[1:18]  ⁴ tn See the note on “Jeremiah” at the beginning of v. 17.

[1:18]  ⁵ tn Heb “today I have made you.” The Hebrew verb form here emphasizes the certainty of a yet future act; the Lord is promising to protect Jeremiah from any future attacks which may result from his faithfully carrying out his commission. See a similar use of the same Hebrew verb tense in v. 9, and see the translator’s note there.

[1:18]  ⁶ tn Heb “I make you a fortified city…against all the land….” The words “as strong as” and “so you will be able to stand against all the people of…” are given to clarify the meaning of the metaphor.

[15:19]  ⁷ tn Heb “So the Lord said thus.”

[15:19]  ⁸ tn Heb “If you return [ = repent], I will restore [more literally, ‘cause you to return’] that you may stand before me.” For the idiom of “standing before” in the sense of serving see BDB 764 s.v. עָמַד Qal.1.e and compare the usage in 1 Kgs 10:8; 12:8; 17:1; Deut 10:8.

[15:19]  ⁹ tn Heb “you shall be as my mouth.”

[15:19]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “They must turn/return to you and you must not turn/return to them.”

[15:20]  ¹¹ sn See 1:18. The Lord renews his promise of protection and reiterates his call to Jeremiah.

[2:6]  ¹² tn The Hebrew term occurs only here in the OT.

[2:6]  ¹³ tn The Hebrew term is found elsewhere in the OT only in Ezek 28:24.

[2:6]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “of their faces.”