Jeremiah 13:22

13:22 You will probably ask yourself, ¹ 

‘Why have these things happened to me?

Why have I been treated like a disgraced adulteress

whose skirt has been torn off and her limbs exposed?’ ² 

It is because you have sinned so much. ³ 

Jeremiah 22:3

22:3 The Lord says, “Do what is just and right. Deliver those who have been robbed from those ⁴  who oppress them. Do not exploit or mistreat foreigners who live in your land, children who have no fathers, or widows. ⁵  Do not kill innocent people ⁶  in this land.

[13:22]  ¹ tn Heb “say in your heart.”

[13:22]  ² tn Heb “Your skirt has been uncovered and your heels have been treated with violence.” This is the generally accepted interpretation of these phrases. See, e.g., BDB 784 s.v. עָקֵב a and HALOT 329 s.v. I חָמַס Nif. The significance of the actions here are part of the metaphor (i.e., personification) of Jerusalem as an adulteress having left her husband and have been explained in the translation for the sake of readers unfamiliar with the metaphor.

[13:22]  ³ tn The translation has been restructured to break up a long sentence involving a conditional clause and an elliptical consequential clause. It has also been restructured to define more clearly what “these things” are. The Hebrew text reads: “And if you say, ‘Why have these things happened to me?’ Because of the greatness of your iniquity your skirts [= what your skirt covers] have been uncovered and your heels have been treated with violence.”

[22:3]  ⁴ tn Heb “from the hand [or power] of.”

[22:3]  ⁵ tn Heb “aliens, orphans, or widows” treating the terms as generic or collective. However, the term “alien” carries faulty connotations and the term “orphan” is not totally appropriate because the Hebrew term does not necessarily mean that both parents have died.

[22:3]  ⁶ tn Heb “Do not shed innocent blood.”