Jeremiah 21:8

21:8 “But ¹  tell the people of Jerusalem ²  that the Lord says, ‘I will give you a choice between two courses of action. One will result in life; the other will result in death. ³ 

Jeremiah 26:4

26:4 Tell them that the Lord says, ⁴  ‘You must obey me! You must live according to the way I have instructed you in my laws. ⁵ 

Jeremiah 44:10

44:10 To this day your people ⁶  have shown no contrition! They have not revered me nor followed the laws and statutes I commanded ⁷  you and your ancestors.’

[21:8]  ¹ tn Heb “And/But unto this people you shall say…” “But” is suggested here by the unusual word order which offsets what they are to say to Zedekiah (v. 3).

[21:8]  ² tn Heb “these people.”

[21:8]  ³ tn Heb “Behold I am setting before you the way of life and the way of death.”

[26:4]  ⁴ tn Heb “thus says the Lord, ‘…’.” The use of the indirect quotation in the translation eliminates one level of embedded quotation to avoid confusion.

[26:4]  ⁵ tn Heb “by walking in my law which I set before you.”

[44:10]  ⁷ tn Heb “they” but as H. Freedman (Jeremiah [SoBB], 284) notes the third person is used here to include the people just referred to as well as the current addressees. Hence “your people” or “the people of Judah.” It is possible that the third person again reflects the rhetorical distancing that was referred to earlier in 35:16 (see the translator’s note there for explanation) in which case one might translate “you have shown,” and “you have not revered.”

[44:10]  ⁸ tn Heb “to set before.” According to BDB 817 s.v. פָּנֶה II.4.b(g) this refers to “propounding to someone for acceptance or choice.” This is clearly the usage in Deut 30:15, 19; Jer 21:8 and is likely the case here. However, to translate literally would not be good English idiom and “proposed to” might not be correctly understood, so the basic translation of נָתַן (natan) has been used here.