Jeremiah 23:20

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

until he has fully carried out his intended purposes. ¹ 

In days to come ² 

you people will come to understand this clearly. ³ 

Ezekiel 6:10

6:10 They will know that I am the Lord; my threats to bring this catastrophe on them were not empty.’ ⁴ 

Zechariah 1:6

1:6 But have my words and statutes, which I commanded my servants the prophets, not outlived your fathers? ⁵  Then they paid attention ⁶  and confessed, ‘The Lord who rules over all has indeed done what he said he would do to us, because of our sinful ways.’”

[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).

[6:10]  ⁴ tn Heb “not in vain did I speak to do to them this catastrophe.” The wording of the last half of v. 10 parallels God’s declaration after the sin of the golden calf (Exod 32:14).

[1:6]  ⁵ tc BHS suggests אֶתְכֶם (’etkhem, “you”) for the MT אֲבֹתֵיכֶם (’avotekhem, “your fathers”) to harmonize with v. 4. In v. 4 the ancestors would not turn but in v. 6 they appear to have done so. The subject in v. 6, however, is to be construed as Zechariah’s own listeners.

[1:6]  ⁶ tn Heb “they turned” (so ASV). Many English versions have “they repented” here; cf. CEV “they turned back to me.”