Jeremiah 26:2

26:2 The Lord said, “Go stand in the courtyard of the Lord’s temple. ¹  Speak out to all the people who are coming from the towns of Judah to worship in the Lord’s temple. Tell them everything I command you to tell them. Do not leave out a single word!

Jeremiah 26:15

26:15 But you should take careful note of this: If you put me to death, you will bring on yourselves and this city and those who live in it the guilt of murdering an innocent man. For the Lord has sent me to speak all this where you can hear it. That is the truth!” ² 

Jeremiah 1:17-18

1:17 “But you, Jeremiah, ³  get yourself ready! ⁴  Go and tell these people everything I instruct you to say. Do not be terrified of them, or I will give you good reason to be terrified of them. ⁵  1:18 I, the Lord, ⁶  hereby promise to make you ⁷  as strong as a fortified city, an iron pillar, and a bronze wall. You will be able to stand up against all who live in ⁸  the land, including the kings of Judah, its officials, its priests and all the people of the land.

Jeremiah 19:1-3

An Object Lesson from a Broken Clay Jar

19:1 The Lord told Jeremiah, ⁹  “Go and buy a clay jar from a potter. ¹⁰  Take with you ¹¹  some of the leaders of the people and some of the leaders ¹²  of the priests. 19:2 Go out to the part of the Hinnom Valley which is near the entrance of the Potsherd Gate. ¹³  Announce there what I tell you. ¹⁴  19:3 Say, ‘Listen to what the Lord says, you kings of Judah and citizens of Jerusalem! ¹⁵  The Lord God of Israel who rules over all ¹⁶  says, “I will bring a disaster on this place ¹⁷  that will make the ears of everyone who hears about it ring! ¹⁸ 

Amos 7:15-17

7:15 Then the Lord took me from tending ¹⁹  flocks and gave me this commission, ²⁰  ‘Go! Prophesy to my people Israel!’ 7:16 So now listen to the Lord’s message! You say, ‘Don’t prophesy against Israel! Don’t preach ²¹  against the family of Isaac!’

7:17 “Therefore this is what the Lord says:

‘Your wife will become a prostitute in the streets ²² 

and your sons and daughters will die violently. ²³ 

Your land will be given to others ²⁴ 

and you will die in a foreign ²⁵  land.

Israel will certainly be carried into exile ²⁶  away from its land.’”

Acts 4:19

4:19 But Peter and John replied, ²⁷  “Whether it is right before God to obey ²⁸  you rather than God, you decide,

Acts 5:29

5:29 But Peter and the apostles replied, ²⁹  “We must obey ³⁰  God rather than people. ³¹ 

[26:2]  ¹ sn It is generally agreed that the incident recorded in this chapter relates to the temple message that Jeremiah gave in 7:1-15. The message there is summarized here in vv. 3-6. The primary interest here is in the response to that message.

[26:15]  ² tn Heb “For in truth the Lord has sent me to you to speak in your ears all these words/things.”

[1:17]  ³ tn The name “Jeremiah” is not in the text. The use of the personal pronoun followed by the proper name is an attempt to reflect the correlative emphasis between Jeremiah’s responsibility noted here and the Lord’s promise noted in the next verse. The emphasis in the Hebrew text is marked by the presence of the subject pronouns at the beginning of each of the two verses.

[1:17]  ⁴ tn Heb “gird up your loins.” For the literal use of this idiom to refer to preparation for action see 2 Kgs 4:29; 9:1. For the idiomatic use to refer to spiritual and emotional preparation as here, see Job 38:3, 40:7, and 1 Pet 1:13 in the NT.

[1:17]  ⁵ tn Heb “I will make you terrified in front of them.” There is a play on words here involving two different forms of the same Hebrew verb and two different but related prepositional phrases, “from before/of,” a preposition introducing the object of a verb of fearing, and “before, in front of,” a preposition introducing a spatial location.

[1:18]  ⁶ tn See the note on “Jeremiah” at the beginning of v. 17.

[1:18]  ⁷ tn Heb “today I have made you.” The Hebrew verb form here emphasizes the certainty of a yet future act; the Lord is promising to protect Jeremiah from any future attacks which may result from his faithfully carrying out his commission. See a similar use of the same Hebrew verb tense in v. 9, and see the translator’s note there.

[1:18]  ⁸ tn Heb “I make you a fortified city…against all the land….” The words “as strong as” and “so you will be able to stand against all the people of…” are given to clarify the meaning of the metaphor.

[19:1]  ⁹ tn The word “Jeremiah” is not in the text. Some Hebrew mss and some of the versions have “to me.” This section, 19:1–20:6 appears to be one of the biographical sections of the book of Jeremiah where incidents in his life are reported in third person. See clearly 9:14 and 20:1-3. The mss and versions do not represent a more original text but are translational or interpretive attempts to fill in a text which had no referent. They are like the translational addition that has been supplied on the basis of contextual indicators.

[19:1]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “an earthenware jar of the potter.”

[19:1]  ¹¹ tc The words “Take with you” follow the reading of the Syriac version and to a certain extent the reading of the Greek version (the latter does not have “with you”). The Hebrew text does not have these words but they are undoubtedly implicit.

[19:1]  ¹² tn Heb “elders” both here and before “of the people.”

[19:2]  ¹³ sn The exact location of the Potsherd Gate is unknown since it is nowhere else mentioned in the Hebrew Bible. It is sometimes identified with the Dung Gate mentioned in Neh 2:13; 3:13-14; 12:31 on the basis of the Jerusalem Targum. It is probably called “Potsherd Gate” because that is where the potter threw out the broken pieces of pottery which were no longer of use to him. The Valley of Ben Hinnom has already been mentioned in 7:31-32 in connection with the illicit religious practices, including child sacrifice, which took place there. The Valley of Ben Hinnom (or sometimes Valley of Hinnom) runs along the west and south sides of Jerusalem.

[19:2]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “the words that I will speak to you.”

[19:3]  ¹⁵ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[19:3]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “Yahweh of armies, the God of Israel.”

[19:3]  ¹⁷ sn Careful comparison of the use of this term throughout this passage and comparison with 7:31-33 which is parallel to several verses in this passage will show that the reference is to the Valley of Ben Hinnom which will become a Valley of Slaughter (see v. 6 and 7:32).

[19:3]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “which everyone who hears it [or about it] his ears will ring.” This is proverbial for a tremendous disaster. See 1 Sam 3:11; 2 Kgs 21:12 for similar prophecies.

[7:15]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “from [following] after.”

[7:15]  ²⁰ tn Heb “and the Lord said to me.”

[7:16]  ²¹ tn The verb, which literally means “to drip,” appears to be a synonym of “to prophesy,” but it might carry a derogatory tone here, perhaps alluding to the impassioned, frenzied way in which prophets sometimes delivered their messages. If so, one could translate, “to drivel; to foam at the mouth” (see HALOT 694 s.v. נטף).

[7:17]  ²² tn Heb “in the city,” that is, “in public.”

[7:17]  ²³ tn Heb “will fall by the sword.”

[7:17]  ²⁴ tn Heb “will be divided up with a [surveyor’s] measuring line.”

[7:17]  ²⁵ tn Heb “[an] unclean”; or “[an] impure.” This fate would be especially humiliating for a priest, who was to distinguish between the ritually clean and unclean (see Lev 10:10).

[7:17]  ²⁶ tn See the note on the word “exile” in 5:5.

[4:19]  ²⁷ tn Grk “answered and said to them.”

[4:19]  ²⁸ tn Grk “hear,” but the idea of “hear and obey” or simply “obey” is frequently contained in the Greek verb ἀκούω (akouw; see L&N 36.14).

[5:29]  ²⁹ tn Grk “apostles answered and said.”

[5:29]  ³⁰ sn Obey. See 4:19. This response has Jewish roots (Dan 3:16-18; 2 Macc 7:2; Josephus, Ant. 17.6.3 [17.159].

[5:29]  ³¹ tn Here ἀνθρώποις (anqrwpoi") has been translated as a generic noun (“people”).