Jeremiah 10:10

10:10 The Lord is the only true God.

He is the living God and the everlasting King.

When he shows his anger the earth shakes.

None of the nations can stand up to his fury.

Jeremiah 18:15

18:15 Yet my people have forgotten me

and offered sacrifices to worthless idols!

This makes them stumble along in the way they live

and leave the old reliable path of their fathers. ¹ 

They have left them to walk in bypaths,

in roads that are not smooth and level. ² 

Jeremiah 32:40

32:40 I will make a lasting covenant ³  with them that I will never stop doing good to them. ⁴  I will fill their hearts and minds with respect for me so that ⁵  they will never again turn ⁶  away from me.

Jeremiah 49:13

49:13 For I solemnly swear,” ⁷  says the Lord, “that Bozrah ⁸  will become a pile of ruins. It will become an object of horror and ridicule, an example to be used in curses. ⁹  All the towns around it will lie in ruins forever.”

Jeremiah 49:33

49:33 “Hazor will become a permanent wasteland,

a place where only jackals live. ¹⁰ 

No one will live there.

No human being will settle in it.” ¹¹ 

Jeremiah 50:5

50:5 They will ask the way to Zion;

they will turn their faces toward it.

They will come ¹²  and bind themselves to the Lord

in a lasting covenant that will never be forgotten. ¹³ 

Jeremiah 51:26

51:26 No one will use any of your stones as a cornerstone.

No one will use any of them in the foundation of his house.

For you will lie desolate forever,” ¹⁴ 

says the Lord. ¹⁵ 

Jeremiah 51:39

51:39 When their appetites are all stirred up, ¹⁶ 

I will set out a banquet for them.

I will make them drunk

so that they will pass out, ¹⁷ 

they will fall asleep forever,

they will never wake up,” ¹⁸ 

says the Lord. ¹⁹ 

Jeremiah 51:57

51:57 “I will make her officials and wise men drunk,

along with her governors, leaders, ²⁰  and warriors.

They will fall asleep forever and never wake up,” ²¹ 

says the King whose name is the Lord who rules over all. ²² 

[18:15]  ¹ sn Heb “the ancient path.” This has already been referred to in Jer 6:16. There is another “old way” but it is the path trod by the wicked (cf. Job 22:15).

[18:15]  ² sn Heb “ways that are not built up.” This refers to the built-up highways. See Isa 40:4 for the figure. The terms “way,” “by-paths,” “roads” are, of course, being used here in the sense of moral behavior or action.

[32:40]  ¹ tn Heb “an everlasting covenant.” For the rationale for the rendering “agreement” and the nature of the biblical covenants see the study note on 11:2.

[32:40]  ² tn Or “stop being gracious to them” or “stop blessing them with good”; Heb “turn back from them to do good to them.”

[32:40]  ³ tn Or “I will make them want to fear and respect me so much that”; Heb “I will put the fear of me in their hearts.” However, as has been noted several times, “heart” in Hebrew is more the center of the volition (and intellect) than the center of emotions as it is in English. Both translations are intended to reflect the difference in psychology.

[32:40]  ⁴ tn The words “never again” are not in the text but are implicit from the context and are supplied not only by this translation but by a number of others.

[49:13]  ¹ tn Heb “I swear by myself.” See 22:5 and the study note there.

[49:13]  ² sn Bozrah appears to have been the chief city in Edom, its capital city (see its parallelism with Edom in Isa 34:6; 63:1; Jer 49:22). The reference to “its towns” (translated here “all the towns around it”) could then be a reference to all the towns in Edom. It was located about twenty-five miles southeast of the southern end of the Dead Sea apparently in the district of Teman (see the parallelism in Amos 1:12).

[49:13]  ³ tn See the study note on 24:9 for the rendering of this term.

[49:33]  ¹ sn Compare Jer 9:11.

[49:33]  ² sn Compare Jer 49:18 and 50:40 where the same thing is said about Edom and Babylon.

[50:5]  ¹ tc The translation here assumes that the Hebrew בֹּאוּ (bo’u; a Qal imperative masculine plural) should be read בָּאוּ (ba’u; a Qal perfect third plural). This reading is presupposed by the Greek version of Aquila, the Latin version, and the Targum (see BHS note a, which mistakenly assumes that the form must be imperfect).

[50:5]  ² sn See Jer 32:40 and the study note there for the nature of this lasting agreement.

[51:26]  ¹ tn This is a fairly literal translation of the original which reads “No one will take from you a stone for a cornerstone nor a stone for foundations.” There is no unanimity of opinion in the commentaries, many feeling that the figure of the burned mountain continues and others feeling that the figure here shifts to a burned city whose stones are so burned that they are useless to be used in building. The latter is the interpretation adopted here (see, e.g., F. B. Huey, Jeremiah, Lamentations [NAC], 423; W. L. Holladay, Jeremiah [Hermeneia], 2:426; NCV).

[51:26]  ² tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[51:39]  ¹ tn Heb “When they are hot.”

[51:39]  ² tc The translation follows the suggestion of KBL 707 s.v. עָלַז and a number of modern commentaries (e.g., Bright, J. A. Thompson, and W. L. Holladay) in reading יְעֻלְּפוּ (ye’ullÿfu) for יַעֲלֹזוּ (ya’alozu) in the sense of “swoon away” or “grow faint” (see KBL 710 s.v. עָלַף Pual). That appears to be the verb that the LXX (the Greek version) was reading when they translated καρωθῶσιν (karwqwsin, “they will be stupefied”). For parallel usage KBL cites Isa 51:20. This fits the context much better than “they will exult” in the Hebrew text.

[51:39]  ³ sn The central figure here is the figure of the cup of the Lord’s wrath (cf. 25:15-29, especially v. 26). Here the Babylonians have been made to drink so deeply of it that they fall into a drunken sleep from which they will never wake up (i.e., they die, death being compared to sleep [cf. Ps 13:3 (13:4 HT); 76:5 (76:6 HT); 90:5]). Compare the usage in Jer 51:57 for this same figure.

[51:39]  ⁴ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[51:57]  ¹ sn For discussion of the terms “governors” and “leaders” see the note at Jer 51:23.

[51:57]  ² sn See the note at Jer 51:39.

[51:57]  ³ tn For the title “Yahweh of armies” see the study note on Jer 2:19.