Jeremiah 2:32

2:32 Does a young woman forget to put on her jewels?

Does a bride forget to put on her bridal attire?

But my people have forgotten me

for more days than can even be counted.

Jeremiah 2:37

2:37 Moreover, you will come away from Egypt

with your hands covering your faces in sorrow and shame ¹ 

because the Lord will not allow your reliance on them to be successful

and you will not gain any help from them. ² 

Jeremiah 4:6

4:6 Raise a signal flag that tells people to go to Zion. ³ 

Run for safety! Do not delay!

For I am about to bring disaster out of the north.

It will bring great destruction. ⁴ 

Jeremiah 6:4

6:4 They will say, ⁵  ‘Prepare to do battle ⁶  against it!

Come on! Let’s attack it at noon!’

But later they will say, ⁷  ‘Oh, oh! Too bad! ⁸ 

The day is almost over

and the shadows of evening are getting long.

Jeremiah 9:8

9:8 Their tongues are like deadly arrows. ⁹ 

They are always telling lies. ¹⁰ 

Friendly words for their neighbors come from their mouths.

But their minds are thinking up ways to trap them. ¹¹ 

Jeremiah 12:15

12:15 But after I have uprooted the people of those nations, I will relent ¹²  and have pity on them. I will restore the people of each of those nations to their own lands ¹³  and to their own country.

Jeremiah 15:5

15:5 The Lord cried out, ¹⁴ 

“Who in the world ¹⁵  will have pity on you, Jerusalem?

Who will grieve over you?

Who will stop long enough ¹⁶ 

to inquire about how you are doing? ¹⁷ 

Jeremiah 22:7

22:7 I will send men against it to destroy it ¹⁸ 

with their axes and hatchets.

They will hack up its fine cedar panels and columns

and throw them into the fire.

Jeremiah 23:20

23:20 The anger of the Lord will not turn back

until he has fully carried out his intended purposes. ¹⁹ 

In days to come ²⁰ 

you people will come to understand this clearly. ²¹ 

Jeremiah 31:4

31:4 I will rebuild you, my dear children Israel, ²² 

so that you will once again be built up.

Once again you will take up the tambourine

and join in the happy throng of dancers. ²³ 

Jeremiah 41:12

41:12 So they took all their troops and went to fight against Ishmael son of Nethaniah. They caught up with him near the large pool ²⁴  at Gibeon.

Jeremiah 45:3

45:3 ‘You have said, “I feel so hopeless! ²⁵  For the Lord has added sorrow to my suffering. ²⁶  I am worn out from groaning. I can’t find any rest.”’”

Jeremiah 48:7

48:7 “Moab, you trust in the things you do and in your riches.

So you too will be conquered.

Your god Chemosh ²⁷  will go into exile ²⁸ 

along with his priests and his officials.

Jeremiah 50:28

50:28 Listen! Fugitives and refugees are coming from the land of Babylon.

They are coming to Zion to declare there

how the Lord our God is getting revenge,

getting revenge for what they have done to his temple. ²⁹ 

Jeremiah 51:55

51:55 For the Lord is ready to destroy Babylon,

and put an end to her loud noise.

Their waves ³⁰  will roar like turbulent ³¹  waters.

They will make a deafening noise. ³² 

[2:37]  ¹ tn Heb “with your hands on your head.” For the picture here see 2 Sam 13:19.

[2:37]  ² tn Heb “The Lord has rejected those you trust in; you will not prosper by/from them.”

[4:6]  ¹ tn Heb “Raise up a signal toward Zion.”

[4:6]  ² tn Heb “out of the north, even great destruction.”

[6:4]  ¹ tn These words are not in the text but are implicit in the connection. They are supplied in the translation for clarity.

[6:4]  ² tn Heb “Sanctify war.” This is probably an idiom from early Israel’s holy wars in which religious rites were to precede the battle.

[6:4]  ³ tn These words are not in the text but are supplied in the translation for clarity. Some commentaries and English versions see these not as the words of the enemy but as those of the Israelites expressing their fear that the enemy will launch a night attack against them and further destroy them. The connection with the next verse, however, fits better with them if they are the words of the enemy.

[6:4]  ⁴ tn Heb “Woe to us!” For the usage of this phrase see the translator’s note on 4:13. The usage of this particle here is a little exaggerated. They have lost the most advantageous time for attack but they are scarcely in a hopeless or doomed situation. The equivalent in English slang is “Bad news!”

[9:8]  ¹ tc This reading follows the Masoretic consonants (the Kethib, a Qal active participle from שָׁחַט, shakhat). The Masoretes preferred to read “a sharpened arrow” (the Qere, a Qal passive participle from the same root or a homonym, meaning “hammered, beaten”). See HALOT 1354 s.v. II שָׁחַט for discussion. The exact meaning of the word makes little difference to the meaning of the metaphor itself.

[9:8]  ² tn Heb “They speak deceit.”

[9:8]  ³ tn Heb “With his mouth a person speaks peace to his neighbor, but in his heart he sets an ambush for him.”

[12:15]  ¹ tn For the use of the verb “turn” (שׁוּב, shuv) in this sense, see BDB s.v. שׁוּב Qal.6.g and compare the usage in Pss 90:13; 6:4; Joel 2:14. It does not simply mean “again” as several of the English versions render it.

[12:15]  ² sn The Lord is sovereign over the nations and has allotted each of them their lands. See Deut 2:5 (Edom), Deut 2:9 (Moab), Deut 2:19 (Ammon). He promised to restore not only his own people Israel to their land (Jer 32:37) but also Moab (Jer 48:47) and Ammon (Jer 49:6).

[15:5]  ¹ tn The words “The Lord cried out” are not in the text. However, they are necessary to show the shift in address between speaking to Jeremiah in vv. 1-4 about the people and addressing Jerusalem in vv. 5-6 and the shift back to the address to Jeremiah in vv. 7-9. The words “oracle of the Lord” are, moreover, found at the beginning of v. 6.

[15:5]  ² tn The words, “in the world” are not in the text but are the translator’s way of trying to indicate that this rhetorical question expects a negative answer.

[15:5]  ³ tn Heb “turn aside.”

[15:5]  ⁴ tn Or “about your well-being”; Heb “about your welfare” (שָׁלוֹם, shalom).

[22:7]  ¹ sn Heb “I will sanctify destroyers against it.” If this is not an attenuated use of the term “sanctify” the traditions of Israel’s holy wars are being turned against her. See also 6:4. In Israel’s early wars in the wilderness and in the conquest, the Lord fought for her against the enemies (cf., e.g., Josh 10:11, 14, 42; 24:7; Judg 5:20; 1 Sam 7:10). Now he is going to fight against them (21:5, 13) and use the enemy as his instruments of destruction. For a similar picture of destruction in the temple see the lament in Ps 74:3-7.

[23:20]  ¹ tn Heb “until he has done and until he has carried out the purposes of his heart.”

[23:20]  ² tn Heb “in the latter days.” However, as BDB 31 s.v. אַחֲרִית b suggests, the meaning of this idiom must be determined from the context. Sometimes it has remote, even eschatological, reference and other times it has more immediate reference as it does here and in Jer 30:23 where it refers to the coming days of Babylonian conquest and exile.

[23:20]  ³ tn The translation is intended to reflect a Hebrew construction where a noun functions as the object of a verb from the same root word (the Hebrew cognate accusative).

[31:4]  ¹ tn Heb “Virgin Israel.”

[31:4]  ² sn Contrast Jer 7:34 and 25:10.

[41:12]  ¹ tn Heb “the many [or great] waters.” This is generally identified with the pool of Gibeon mentioned in 2 Sam 2:13.

[45:3]  ¹ tn Heb “Woe to me!” See the translator’s note on 4:13 and 10:19 for the rendering of this term.

[45:3]  ² sn From the context it appears that Baruch was feeling sorry for himself (v. 5) as well as feeling anguish for the suffering that the nation would need to undergo according to the predictions of Jeremiah that he was writing down.

[48:7]  ¹ sn Chemosh was the national god of Moab (see also Numb 21:29). Child sacrifice appears to have been a part of his worship (2 Kgs 3:27). Solomon built a high place in Jerusalem for him (1 Kgs 11:7), and he appears to have been worshiped in Israel until Josiah tore that high place down (2 Kgs 23:13).

[48:7]  ² sn The practice of carrying off the gods of captive nations has already been mentioned in the study note on 43:12. See also Isa 46:1-2 noted there.

[50:28]  ¹ tn Heb “Hark! Fugitives and refugees from the land of Babylon to declare in Zion the vengeance of the Lord our God, vengeance for his temple.” For the meaning “Hark!” for the noun קוֹל (qol) see BDB 877 s.v. קוֹל 1.f and compare the usage in Jer 10:22. The syntax is elliptical because there is no main verb. The present translation has supplied the verb “come” as many other English versions have done. The translation also expands the genitival expression “vengeance for his temple” to explain what all the commentaries agree is involved.

[51:55]  ¹ tn The antecedent of the third masculine plural pronominal suffix is not entirely clear. It probably refers back to the “destroyers” mentioned in v. 53 as the agents of God’s judgment on Babylon.

[51:55]  ² tn Or “mighty waters.”

[51:55]  ³ tn Heb “and the noise of their sound will be given,”