Jeremiah 1:9

1:9 Then the Lord reached out his hand and touched my mouth and said to me, “I will most assuredly give you the words you are to speak for me. ¹ 

Jeremiah 5:28

5:28 That is how ²  they have grown fat and sleek. ³ 

There is no limit to the evil things they do. ⁴ 

They do not plead the cause of the fatherless in such a way as to win it.

They do not defend the rights of the poor.

Jeremiah 7:4

7:4 Stop putting your confidence in the false belief that says, ⁵  “We are safe! ⁶  The temple of the Lord is here! The temple of the Lord is here! The temple of the Lord is here!” ⁷ 

Jeremiah 7:22

7:22 Consider this: ⁸  When I spoke to your ancestors after I brought them out of Egypt, I did not merely give them commands about burnt offerings and sacrifices.

Jeremiah 11:3

11:3 Tell them that the Lord, the God of Israel, says, ‘Anyone who does not keep the terms of the covenant will be under a curse. ⁹ 

Jeremiah 23:9

Oracles Against the False Prophets ¹⁰ 

23:9 Here is what the Lord says concerning the false prophets: ¹¹ 

My heart and my mind are deeply disturbed.

I tremble all over. ¹² 

I am like a drunk person,

like a person who has had too much wine, ¹³ 

because of the way the Lord

and his holy word are being mistreated. ¹⁴ 

Jeremiah 23:18

23:18 Yet which of them has ever stood in the Lord’s inner circle ¹⁵ 

so they ¹⁶  could see and hear what he has to say? ¹⁷ 

Which of them have ever paid attention or listened to what he has said?

Jeremiah 23:36

23:36 You must no longer say that the Lord’s message is burdensome. ¹⁸  For what is ‘burdensome’ ¹⁹  really pertains to what a person himself says. ²⁰  You are misrepresenting ²¹  the words of our God, the living God, the Lord who rules over all. ²² 

Jeremiah 26:5

26:5 You must pay attention to the exhortations of my servants the prophets. I have sent them to you over and over again. ²³  But you have not paid any attention to them.

Jeremiah 27:14

27:14 Do not listen to the prophets who are telling you that you do not need to serve ²⁴  the king of Babylon. For they are prophesying lies to you.

Jeremiah 36:8

36:8 So Baruch son of Neriah did exactly what the prophet Jeremiah had told him to do. He read what the Lord had said from the scroll in the temple of the Lord. ²⁵ 

Jeremiah 37:2

37:2 Neither he nor the officials who served him nor the people of Judah paid any attention to what the Lord said through the prophet Jeremiah. ²⁶ 

Jeremiah 51:64

51:64 Then say, ‘In the same way Babylon will sink and never rise again because of the judgments ²⁷  I am ready to bring upon her; they will grow faint.’”

The prophecies of Jeremiah end here. ²⁸ 

[1:9]  ¹ tn Heb “Behold, I have put my words in your mouth.” This is an example of the Hebrew “scheduling” perfect or the “prophetic” perfect where a future event is viewed as so certain it is spoken of as past. The Hebrew particle rendered here “assuredly” (Heb הִנֵּה, hinneh) underlines the certitude of the promise for the future. See the translator’s note on v. 6.

[5:28]  ² tn These words are not in the text but are supplied in the translation to show that this line is parallel with the preceding.

[5:28]  ³ tn The meaning of this word is uncertain. This verb occurs only here. The lexicons generally relate it to the word translated “plate” in Song 5:14 and understand it to mean “smooth, shiny” (so BDB 799 s.v. I עֶשֶׁת) or “fat” (so HALOT 850 s.v. II עֶשֶׁת). The word in Song 5:14 more likely means “smooth” than “plate” (so TEV). So “sleek” is most likely here.

[5:28]  ⁴ tn Heb “they cross over/transgress with respect to matters of evil.”

[7:4]  ³ tn Heb “Stop trusting in lying words which say.”

[7:4]  ⁴ tn The words “We are safe!” are not in the text but are supplied in the translation for clarity.

[7:4]  ⁵ tn Heb “The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord are these (i.e., these buildings).” Elsewhere triple repetition seems to mark a kind of emphasis (cf. Isa 6:3; Jer 22:29; Ezek 21:27 [32 HT]). The triple repetition that follows seems to be Jeremiah’s way of mocking the (false) sense of security that people had in the invincibility of Jerusalem because God dwelt in the temple. They appeared to be treating the temple as some kind of magical charm. A similar feeling had grown up around the ark in the time of the judges (cf. 1 Sam 3:3) and the temple and city of Jerusalem in Micah’s day (cf. Mic 3:11). It is reflected also in some of the Psalms (cf., e.g., Ps 46, especially v. 5).

[7:22]  ⁴ tn Heb “For” but this introduces a long explanation about the relative importance of sacrifice and obedience.

[11:3]  ⁵ tn Heb “Cursed is the person who does not listen to the terms of this covenant.” “This covenant” is further qualified in the following verse by a relative clause. The form of the sentence and the qualification “my” before covenant were chosen for better English idiom and to break up a long sentence which really extends to the middle of v. 5.

[23:9]  ⁶ sn Jeremiah has already had a good deal to say about the false prophets and their fate. See 2:8, 26; 5:13, 31; 14:13-15. Here he parallels the condemnation of the wicked prophets and their fate (23:9-40) with that of the wicked kings (21:11-22:30).

[23:9]  ⁷ tn The word “false” is not in the text, but it is clear from the context that these are whom the sayings are directed against. The words “Here is what the Lord says” are also not in the text. But comparison with 46:2; 48:1; 49:1, 7, 23, 28; and 21:11 will show that this is a heading. The words are supplied in the translation for clarity.

[23:9]  ⁸ tn Heb “My heart is crushed within me. My bones tremble.” It has already been noted several times that the “heart” in ancient Hebrew psychology was the intellectual and volitional center of the person, the kidneys were the emotional center, and the bones the locus of strength and also the subject of joy, distress, and sorrow. Here Jeremiah is speaking of his distress of heart and mind in modern psychology, a distress that leads him to trembling of body which he compares to that of a drunken person staggering around under the influence of wine.

[23:9]  ⁹ tn Heb “wine has passed over him.”

[23:9]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “wine because of the Lord and because of his holy word.” The words that are supplied in the translation are implicit from the context and are added for clarity.

[23:18]  ⁷ tn Or “has been the Lord’s confidant.”

[23:18]  ⁸ tn The form here is a jussive with a vav of subordination introducing a purpose after a question (cf. GKC 322 §109.f).

[23:18]  ⁹ tc Heb “his word.” In the second instance (“what he has said” at the end of the verse) the translation follows the suggestion of the Masoretes (Qere) and many Hebrew mss rather than the consonantal text (Kethib) of the Leningrad Codex.

[23:36]  ⁸ tn Heb “burden of the Lord.”

[23:36]  ⁹ tn Heb “the burden.”

[23:36]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “The burden is [or will be] to a man his word.” There is a good deal of ambiguity regarding how this line is to be rendered. For the major options and the issues involved W. L. Holladay, Jeremiah (Hermeneia), 1:651-52 should be consulted. Most of them are excluded by the observation that מַשָּׂא probably does not mean “oracle” anywhere in this passage (see note on v. 33 regarding the use of this word). Hence it does not mean “every man’s word becomes his oracle” as in NIV or “for that ‘burden’ [= oracle] is what he entrusts to the man of his word” (W. McKane, Jeremiah [ICC], 1:600-601). The latter is also ruled out by the fact that the antecedent of “his” on “his word” is clearly the word “man” in front of it. This would be the only case where the phrase “man of his word” occurs. There is also no textual reason for repointing the noun with the article as the noun with the interrogative to read “For how can his word become a burden to anyone?” There are, of course, other options but this is sufficient to show that the translation has been chosen after looking at other alternatives.

[23:36]  ¹¹ tn Heb “turning.” See BDB 245 s.v. הָפַךְ Qal.1.c and Lev 13:55; Jer 13:33 “changing, altering.”

[23:36]  ¹² tn Heb “Yahweh of armies.”

[26:5]  ⁹ tn See the translator’s note on 7:13 for the idiom here.

[27:14]  ¹⁰ tn The verb in this context is best taken as a negative obligatory imperfect. See IBHS 508 §31.4g for discussion and examples. See Exod 4:15 as an example of positive obligation.

[36:8]  ¹¹ tn Heb “And Baruch son of Neriah did according to all that the prophet Jeremiah commanded him with regard to reading from the scroll the words of the Lord in the temple of the Lord.” The sentence has been broken down and the modifiers placed where they belong to better conform to contemporary English style.

[37:2]  ¹² sn These two verses (37:1-2) are introductory to chs. 37–38 and are intended to characterize Zedekiah and his regime as disobedient just like Jehoiakim and his regime had been (Jer 36:27; cf. 2 Kgs 24:19-20). This characterization is important because Zedekiah is portrayed in the incidents that follow in 37–38 as seeking the Lord’s help or seeking a word from the Lord. However though he did send to inquire of Jeremiah three times, he did not pay attention to the warnings that he received in reply and was ultimately responsible for the fall of Jerusalem (Jer 39). As elsewhere in the book of Jeremiah, Jeconiah’s reign is passed over in silence because it was negligible and because Jeremiah did not wish to legitimize the hopes that many in Israel and Babylon had in his returning from exile and resuming rule over Judah (see further the study notes on 22:24, 30 and 33:30).

[51:64]  ¹³ tn Or “disaster”; or “calamity.”

[51:64]  ¹⁴ sn The final chapter of the book of Jeremiah does not mention Jeremiah or record any of his prophecies.