Jeremiah 11:8

11:8 But they did not listen to me or pay any attention to me! Each one of them followed the stubborn inclinations of his own wicked heart. So I brought on them all the punishments threatened in the covenant because they did not carry out its terms as I commanded them to do.’” ¹ 

Jeremiah 13:10

13:10 These wicked people refuse to obey what I have said. ²  They follow the stubborn inclinations of their own hearts and pay allegiance ³  to other gods by worshiping and serving them. So ⁴  they will become just like these linen shorts which are good for nothing.

Jeremiah 16:11

16:11 Then tell them that the Lord says, ⁵  ‘It is because your ancestors ⁶  rejected me and paid allegiance to ⁷  other gods. They have served them and worshiped them. But they have rejected me and not obeyed my law. ⁸ 

Jeremiah 52:7

52:7 They broke through the city walls, and all the soldiers tried to escape. They left the city during the night. They went through the gate between the two walls that is near the king’s garden. ⁹  (The Babylonians had the city surrounded.) Then they headed for the Jordan Valley. ¹⁰ 

[11:8]  ¹ tn Heb “So I brought on them all the terms of this covenant which I commanded to do and they did not do.” There is an interesting polarity that is being exploited by two different nuances implicit in the use of the word “terms” (דִּבְרֵי [divre], literally “words”), i.e., what the Lord “brings on” them, namely, the curses that are the penalty for disobedience and the stipulations that they are “to do,” that is, to carry out. The sentence is broken up this way in keeping with contemporary English style to avoid the long and complicated style of the original.

[13:10]  ² tn Heb “to listen to my words.”

[13:10]  ³ tn Heb “and [they follow] after.” See the translator’s note at 2:5 for the idiom.

[13:10]  ⁴ tn The structure of this verse is a little unusual. It consists of a subject, “this wicked people” qualified by several “which” clauses preceding a conjunction and a form which would normally be taken as a third person imperative (a Hebrew jussive; וִיהִי, vihi). This construction, called casus pendens by Hebrew grammarians, lays focus on the subject, here calling attention to the nature of Israel’s corruption which makes it rotten and useless to God. See GKC 458 §143.d for other examples of this construction.

[16:11]  ³ tn These two sentences have been recast in English to break up a long Hebrew sentence and incorporate the oracular formula “says the Lord (Heb ‘oracle of the Lord’)” which occurs after “Your fathers abandoned me.” In Hebrew the two sentences read: “When you tell them these things and they say, ‘…’, then tell them, ‘Because your ancestors abandoned me,’ oracle of the Lord.”

[16:11]  ⁴ tn Heb “fathers” (also in vv. 12, 13, 15, 19).

[16:11]  ⁵ tn Heb “followed after.” See the translator’s note at 2:5 for the explanation of the idiom.

[16:11]  ⁶ tn Heb “But me they have abandoned and my law they have not kept.” The objects are thrown forward to bring out the contrast which has rhetorical force. However, such a sentence in English would be highly unnatural.

[52:7]  ⁴ sn The king’s garden is mentioned again in Neh 3:15 in conjunction with the pool of Siloam and the stairs that go down from the city of David. This would have been in the southern part of the city near the Tyropean Valley which agrees with the reference to the “two walls” which were probably the walls on the eastern and western hills.

[52:7]  ⁵ sn Heb “toward the Arabah.” The Arabah was the rift valley north and south of the Dead Sea. Here the intention was undoubtedly to escape across the Jordan to Moab or Ammon. It appears from 40:14; 41:15 that the Ammonites were known to harbor fugitives from the Babylonians.