Jeremiah 11:10

11:10 They have gone back to the evil ways ¹  of their ancestors of old who refused to obey what I told them. They, too, have paid allegiance to ²  other gods and worshiped them. Both the nation of Israel and the nation of Judah ³  have violated the covenant I made with their ancestors.

Jeremiah 31:15

31:15 The Lord says,

“A sound is heard in Ramah, ⁴ 

a sound of crying in bitter grief.

It is the sound of Rachel weeping for her children

and refusing to be comforted, because her children are gone.” ⁵ 

[11:10]  ¹ tn Or “They have repeated the evil actions of….”

[11:10]  ² tn Heb “have walked/followed after.” See the translator’s note at 2:5 for the idiom.

[11:10]  ³ tn Heb “house of Israel and house of Judah.”

[31:15]  ⁴ sn Ramah is a town in Benjamin approximately five miles (8 km) north of Jerusalem. It was on the road between Bethel and Bethlehem. Traditionally, Rachel’s tomb was located near there at a place called Zelzah (1 Sam 10:2). Rachel was the mother of Joseph and Benjamin and was very concerned about having children because she was barren (Gen 30:1-2) and went to great lengths to have them (Gen 30:3, 14-15, 22-24). She was the grandmother of Ephraim and Manasseh which were two of the major tribes in northern Israel. Here Rachel is viewed metaphorically as weeping for her “children,” the descendants of Ephraim and Manasseh, who had been carried away into captivity in 722 b.c.

[31:15]  ⁵ tn Or “gone into exile” (cf. v. 16), though some English versions take this as meaning “dead” (e.g., NCV, CEV, NLT), presumably in light of Matt 2:18.