Jeremiah 23:30-32

23:30 So I, the Lord, affirm ¹  that I am opposed to those prophets who steal messages from one another that they claim are from me. ²  23:31 I, the Lord, affirm ³  that I am opposed to those prophets who are using their own tongues to declare, ‘The Lord declares….’ ⁴  23:32 I, the Lord, affirm ⁵  that I am opposed to those prophets who dream up lies and report them. They are misleading my people with their reckless lies. ⁶  I did not send them. I did not commission them. They are not helping these people at all. ⁷  I, the Lord, affirm it!” ⁸ 

[23:30]  ¹ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[23:30]  ² tn Heb “who are stealing my words from one another.” However, context shows that it is their own word which they claim is from the Lord (cf. next verse).

[23:31]  ³ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[23:31]  ⁴ tn The word “The Lord” is not actually in the text but is implicit in the idiom. It is generally supplied in all the English versions.

[23:32]  ⁵ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[23:32]  ⁶ tn Heb “with their lies and their recklessness.” This is an example of hendiadys where two nouns (in this case a concrete and an abstract one) are joined by “and” but one is intended to be the adjectival modifier of the other.

[23:32]  ⁷ sn In the light of what has been said this is a rhetorical understatement; they are not only “not helping,” they are leading them to their doom (cf. vv. 19-22). This figure of speech is known as litotes.

[23:32]  ⁸ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”