Jeremiah 2:5

2:5 This is what the Lord says:

“What fault could your ancestors ¹  have possibly found in me

that they strayed so far from me? ² 

They paid allegiance to ³  worthless idols, and so became worthless to me. ⁴ 

Jeremiah 5:31

5:31 The prophets prophesy lies.

The priests exercise power by their own authority. ⁵ 

And my people love to have it this way.

But they will not be able to help you when the time of judgment comes! ⁶ 

Jeremiah 7:21

7:21 The Lord said to the people of Judah, ⁷  “The Lord God of Israel who rules over all ⁸  says: ‘You might as well go ahead and add the meat of your burnt offerings to that of the other sacrifices and eat it, too! ⁹ 

Jeremiah 9:5

9:5 One friend deceives another

and no one tells the truth.

These people have trained themselves ¹⁰  to tell lies.

They do wrong and are unable to repent.

Jeremiah 20:8

20:8 For whenever I prophesy, ¹¹  I must cry out, ¹² 

“Violence and destruction are coming!” ¹³ 

This message from the Lord ¹⁴  has made me

an object of continual insults and derision.

Jeremiah 23:25-26

23:25 The Lord says, ¹⁵  “I have heard what those prophets who are prophesying lies in my name are saying. They are saying, ‘I have had a dream! I have had a dream!’ ¹⁶  23:26 Those prophets are just prophesying lies. They are prophesying the delusions of their own minds. ¹⁷ 

Jeremiah 27:10

27:10 Do not listen to them, ¹⁸  because their prophecies are lies. ¹⁹  Listening to them will only cause you ²⁰  to be taken far away from your native land. I will drive you out of your country and you will die in exile. ²¹ 

Jeremiah 28:16

28:16 So the Lord says, ‘I will most assuredly remove ²²  you from the face of the earth. You will die this very year because you have counseled rebellion against the Lord.’” ²³ 

Jeremiah 51:51

51:51 ‘We ²⁴  are ashamed because we have been insulted. ²⁵ 

Our faces show our disgrace. ²⁶ 

For foreigners have invaded

the holy rooms ²⁷  in the Lord’s temple.’

[2:5]  ¹ tn Heb “fathers.”

[2:5]  ² tn Or “I did not wrong your ancestors in any way. Yet they went far astray from me.” Both translations are an attempt to render the rhetorical question which demands a negative answer.

[2:5]  ³ tn Heb “They went/followed after.” This idiom is found most often in Deuteronomy or covenant contexts. It refers to loyalty to God and to his covenant or his commandments (e.g., 1 Kgs 14:8; 2 Chr 34:31) with the metaphor of a path or way underlying it (e.g., Deut 11:28; 28:14). To “follow other gods” was to abandon this way and this loyalty (i.e., to “abandon” or “forget” God, Judg 2:12; Hos 2:13) and to follow the customs or religious traditions of the pagan nations (e.g., 2 Kgs 17:15). The classic text on “following” God or another god is 1 Kgs 18:18, 21 where Elijah taunts the people with “halting between two opinions” whether the Lord was the true God or Baal was. The idiom is often found followed by “to serve and to worship” or “they served and worshiped” such and such a god or entity (see, e.g., Jer 8:2; 11:10; 13:10; 16:11; 25:6; 35:15).

[2:5]  ⁴ tn The words “to me” are not in the Hebrew text but are implicit from the context: Heb “they followed after the worthless thing/things and became worthless.” There is an obvious wordplay on the verb “became worthless” and the noun “worthless thing,” which is probably to be understood collectively and to refer to idols as it does in Jer 8:19; 10:8; 14:22; Jonah 2:8.

[5:31]  ⁵ tn Heb “they shall rule at their hands.” Since the word “hand” can be used figuratively for authority or mean “side” and the pronoun “them” can refer to the priests themselves or the prophets, the following translations have also been suggested: “the priests rule under their [the prophets’] directions,” or “the priests rule in league with them [the prophets].” From the rest of the book it would appear that the prophets did not exercise authority over the priests nor did they exercise the same authority over the people that the priests did. Hence it probably mean “by their own hand/power/authority.”

[5:31]  ⁶ tn Heb “But what will you do at its end?” The rhetorical question implies a negative answer: “Nothing!”

[7:21]  ⁹ tn The words “The Lord said to the people of Judah” are not in the text but are implicit in the shift in addressee between vv. 16-20 and vv. 21-26.

[7:21]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “Yahweh of armies, the God of Israel.”

[7:21]  ¹¹ tn Heb “Add your burnt offerings to your [other] sacrifices and eat the meat!” See the following sn for explanation. This is an example of the rhetorical use of the imperative for a sarcastic challenge. Cf. GKC 324 §110.a; cf. Amos 4:4, “Go to Bethel and sin!”

[9:5]  ¹³ tn Heb “their tongues.” However, this is probably not a natural idiom in contemporary English and the tongue may stand as a part for the whole anyway.

[20:8]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “speak,” but the speaking is in the context of speaking as a prophet.

[20:8]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “I cry out, I proclaim.”

[20:8]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “Violence and destruction.”

[20:8]  ²⁰ tn Heb “the word of the Lord.” For the use of כִּי…כִּי (ki…ki) here in the sense of “for…and” see KBL 432 s.v. כּי 10.

[23:25]  ²¹ tn The words, “The Lord says” are not in the text. They are supplied in the translation for clarity to show that the Lord continues speaking.

[23:25]  ²² sn To have had a dream was not an illegitimate means of receiving divine revelation. God had revealed himself in the past to his servants through dreams (e.g., Jacob [Gen 31:10-11] and Joseph [Gen 37:6, 7, 9]) and God promised to reveal himself through dreams (Num 12:6; Joel 2:28 [3:1 HT]). What was illegitimate was to use the dream to lead people away from the Lord (Deut 13:1-5 [13:2-6 HT]). That was what the prophets were doing through their dreams which were “lies” and “the delusions of their own minds.” Through them they were making people forget who the Lord really was which was just like what their ancestors had done through worshiping Baal.

[23:26]  ²⁵ sn See the parallel passage in Jer 14:13-15.

[27:10]  ²⁹ tn The words “Don’t listen to them” have been repeated from v. 9a to pick up the causal connection between v. 9a and v. 10 that is formally introduced by a causal particle in v. 10 in the original text.

[27:10]  ³⁰ tn Heb “they are prophesying a lie.”

[27:10]  ³¹ tn Heb “lies will result in your being taken far…” (לְמַעַן [lÿma’an] + infinitive). This is a rather clear case of the particle לְמַעַן introducing result (contra BDB 775 s.v. מַעַן note 1. There is no irony in this statement; it is a bold prediction).

[27:10]  ³² tn The words “out of your country” are not in the text but are implicit in the meaning of the verb. The words “in exile” are also not in the text but are implicit in the context. These words have been supplied in the translation for clarity.

[28:16]  ³³ sn There is a play on words here in Hebrew between “did not send you” and “will…remove you.” The two verbs are from the same root word in Hebrew. The first is the simple active and the second is the intensive.

[28:16]  ³⁴ sn In giving people false assurances of restoration when the Lord had already told them to submit to Babylon, Hananiah was really counseling rebellion against the Lord. What Hananiah had done was contrary to the law of Deut 13:6 and was punishable by death.

[51:51]  ³⁷ sn The exiles lament the way they have been humiliated.

[51:51]  ³⁸ tn Heb “we have heard an insult.”

[51:51]  ³⁹ tn Heb “disgrace covers our face.”

[51:51]  ⁴⁰ tn Or “holy places, sanctuaries.”