Jeremiah 10:15

10:15 They are worthless, mere objects to be mocked. ¹ 

When the time comes to punish them, they will be destroyed.

Jeremiah 51:18

51:18 They are worthless, objects to be ridiculed.

When the time comes to punish them, they will be destroyed.

Jeremiah 10:3

10:3 For the religion ²  of these people is worthless.

They cut down a tree in the forest,

and a craftsman makes it into an idol with his tools. ³ 

Jeremiah 16:19

16:19 Then I said, ⁴ 

“Lord, you give me strength and protect me.

You are the one I can run to for safety when I am in trouble. ⁵ 

Nations from all over the earth

will come to you and say,

‘Our ancestors had nothing but false gods –

worthless idols that could not help them at all. ⁶ 

[10:15]  ¹ tn Or “objects of mockery.”

[10:3]  ² tn Heb “statutes.” According to BDB 350 s.v. חֻקָּה 2.b it refers to the firmly established customs or practices of the pagan nations. Compare the usage in Lev 20:23; 2 Kgs 17:8. Here it is essentially equivalent to דֶּרֶךְ (derekh) in v. 1, which has already been translated “religious practices.”

[10:3]  ³ sn This passage is dripping with sarcasm. It begins by talking about the “statutes” of the pagan peoples as a “vapor” using a singular copula and singular predicate. Then it suppresses the subject, the idol, as though it were too horrible to mention, using only the predications about it. The last two lines read literally: “[it is] a tree which one cuts down from the forest; the work of the hands of a craftsman with his chisel.”

[16:19]  ³ tn The words “Then I said” are not in the text. They are supplied in the translation to show the shift from God, who has been speaking to Jeremiah, to Jeremiah, who here addresses God.

[16:19]  ⁴ tn Heb “O Lord, my strength and my fortress, my refuge in the day of trouble. The literal which piles up attributes is of course more forceful than the predications. However, piling up poetic metaphors like this adds to the length of the English sentence and risks lack of understanding on the part of some readers. Some rhetorical force has been sacrificed for the sake of clarity.

[16:19]  ⁵ tn Once again the translation has sacrificed some of the rhetorical force for the sake of clarity and English style: Heb “Only falsehood did our ancestors possess, vanity and [things in which?] there was no one profiting in them.”