Jeremiah 3:1

3:1 “If a man divorces his wife

and she leaves him and becomes another man’s wife,

he may not take her back again. ¹ 

Doing that would utterly defile the land. ² 

But you, Israel, have given yourself as a prostitute to many gods. ³ 

So what makes you think you can return to me?” ⁴ 

says the Lord.

Jeremiah 3:16

3:16 In those days, your population will greatly increase ⁵  in the land. At that time,” says the Lord, “people will no longer talk about having the ark ⁶  that contains the Lord’s covenant with us. ⁷  They will not call it to mind, remember it, or miss it. No, that will not be done any more! ⁸ 

Jeremiah 7:31

7:31 They have also built places of worship ⁹  in a place called Topheth ¹⁰  in the Valley of Ben Hinnom so that they can sacrifice their sons and daughters by fire. That is something I never commanded them to do! Indeed, it never even entered my mind to command such a thing! ¹¹ 

Jeremiah 12:16

12:16 But they must make sure you learn to follow the religious practices of my people. ¹²  Once they taught my people to swear their oaths using the name of the god Baal. ¹³  But then, they must swear oaths using my name, saying, “As surely as the Lord lives, I swear.” ¹⁴  If they do these things, ¹⁵  then they will be included among the people I call my own. ¹⁶ 

Jeremiah 14:14

14:14 Then the Lord said to me, “Those prophets are prophesying lies while claiming my authority! ¹⁷  I did not send them. I did not commission them. ¹⁸  I did not speak to them. They are prophesying to these people false visions, worthless predictions, ¹⁹  and the delusions of their own mind.

Jeremiah 24:1

Good Figs and Bad Figs

24:1 The Lord showed me two baskets of figs sitting before his temple. This happened after King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon deported Jehoiakim’s son, King Jeconiah of Judah. He deported him and the leaders of Judah, along with the craftsmen and metal workers, and took them to Babylon. ²⁰ 

Jeremiah 28:4

28:4 I will also bring back to this place Jehoiakim’s son King Jeconiah of Judah and all the exiles who were taken to Babylon.’ Indeed, the Lord affirms, ²¹  ‘I will break the yoke of servitude to the king of Babylon.’”

Jeremiah 31:34

31:34 “People will no longer need to teach their neighbors and relatives to know me. ²²  For all of them, from the least important to the most important, will know me,” ²³  says the Lord. “For ²⁴  I will forgive their sin and will no longer call to mind the wrong they have done.”

Jeremiah 34:22

34:22 For I, the Lord, affirm that ²⁵  I will soon give the order and bring them back to this city. They will fight against it and capture it and burn it down. I will also make the towns of Judah desolate so that there will be no one living in them.”’”

Jeremiah 44:21

44:21 “The Lord did indeed remember and call to mind what you did! He remembered the sacrifices you and your ancestors, your kings, your leaders, and all the rest of the people of the land offered to other gods ²⁶  in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem. ²⁷ 

Jeremiah 52:31

Jehoiachin in Exile

52:31 In the thirty-seventh year of the exile of King Jehoiachin of Judah, on the twenty-fifth ²⁸  day of the twelfth month, ²⁹  Evil-Merodach, in the first year of his reign, pardoned ³⁰  King Jehoiachin of Judah and released him from prison.

[3:1]  ¹ tn Heb “May he go back to her again?” The question is rhetorical and expects a negative answer.

[3:1]  ² tn Heb “Would the land not be utterly defiled?” The stative is here rendered actively to connect better with the preceding. The question is rhetorical and expects a positive answer.

[3:1]  ³ tn Heb “But you have played the prostitute with many lovers.”

[3:1]  ⁴ tn Heb “Returning to me.” The form is the bare infinitive which the KJV and ASV have interpreted as an imperative “Yet, return to me!” However, it is more likely that a question is intended, expressing surprise in the light of the law alluded to and the facts cited. For the use of the infinitive absolute in the place of a finite verb, cf. GKC 346 §113.ee. For the introduction of a question without a question marker, cf. GKC 473 §150.a.

[3:16]  ⁵ tn Heb “you will become numerous and fruitful.”

[3:16]  ⁶ tn Or “chest.”

[3:16]  ⁷ tn Heb “the ark of the covenant.” It is called this because it contained the tables of the law which in abbreviated form constituted their covenant obligations to the Lord, cf. Exod 31:18; 32:15; 34:29.

[3:16]  ⁸ tn Or “Nor will another one be made”; Heb “one will not do/make [it?] again.”

[7:31]  ⁹ tn Heb “high places.”

[7:31]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “the high places of [or in] Topheth.”

[7:31]  ¹¹ tn Heb “It never entered my heart.” The words “to command such a thing” do not appear in the Hebrew but are added for the sake of clarity.

[12:16]  ¹³ tn Heb “the ways of my people.” For this nuance of the word “ways” compare 10:2 and the notes there.

[12:16]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “taught my people to swear by Baal.”

[12:16]  ¹⁵ tn The words “I swear” are not in the text but are implicit to the oath formula. They are supplied in the translation for clarity.

[12:16]  ¹⁶ tn The words “If they do this” are not in the text. They are part of an attempt to break up a Hebrew sentence which is long and complex into equivalent shorter sentences consistent with contemporary English style. Verse 16 in Hebrew is all one sentence with a long complex conditional clause followed by a short consequence: “If they carefully learn the ways of my people to swear by name, ‘By the life of the Lord,’ as they taught my people to swear by Baal, then they will be built up in the midst of my people.” The translation strives to create the same contingencies and modifications by breaking up the sentence into shorter sentences in accord with contemporary English style.

[12:16]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “they will be built up among my people.” The expression “be built up among” is without parallel. However, what is involved here is conceptually parallel to the ideas expressed in Isa 19:23-25 and Zech 14:16-19. That is, these people will be allowed to live on their own land, to worship the Lord there, and to come to Jerusalem to celebrate the feasts. To translate literally would be meaningless or misleading for many readers.

[14:14]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “Falsehood those prophets are prophesying in my name.” In the OT, the “name” reflected the person’s character (cf. Gen 27:36; 1 Sam 25:25) or his reputation (Gen 11:4; 2 Sam 8:13). To speak in someone’s name was to act as his representative or carry his authority (1 Sam 25:9; 1 Kgs 21:8).

[14:14]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “I did not command them.” Compare 1 Chr 22:12 for usage.

[14:14]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “divination and worthlessness.” The noun “worthlessness” stands as a qualifying “of” phrase (= to an adjective; an attributive genitive in Hebrew) after a noun in Zech 11:17; Job 13:4. This is an example of hendiadys where two nouns are joined by “and” with one serving as the qualifier of the other.

[24:1]  ²¹ sn See 2 Kgs 24:10-17 (especially vv. 14-16). Nebuchadnezzar left behind the poorest people of the land under the puppet king Zedekiah. Jeconiah has already been referred to earlier in 13:18; 22:25-26. The deportation referred to here occurred in 597 b.c. and included the priest Ezekiel.

[28:4]  ²⁵ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[31:34]  ²⁹ tn Heb “teach…, saying, ‘Know the Lord.’” The indirect quote has been chosen for stylistic reasons, i.e., to better parallel the following line.

[31:34]  ³⁰ sn This statement should be understood against the background of Jer 8:8-9 where class distinctions were drawn and certain people were considered to have more awareness and responsibility for knowing the law and also Jer 5:1-5 and 9:3-9 where the sinfulness of Israel was seen to be universal across these class distinctions and no trust was to be placed in friends, neighbors, or relatives because all without distinction had cast off God’s yoke (i.e., refused to submit themselves to his authority).

[31:34]  ³¹ tn The Hebrew particle כִּי (ki) that introduces this clause refers to more than just the preceding clause (i.e., that all will know the Lord) but to all of vv. 31-34a (See BDB 474 s.v. כִּי 3.c).

[34:22]  ³³ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[44:21]  ³⁷ tn The words “to other gods” are not in the text but are implicit from the context (cf. v. 17). They are supplied in the translation for clarity. It was not the act of sacrifice that was wrong but the recipient.

[44:21]  ³⁸ tn Heb “The sacrifices which you sacrificed in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem, you and your fathers, your kings and your leaders and the people of the land, did not the Lord remember them and [did they not] come into his mind?” The question is again rhetorical and expects a positive answer. So it is rendered here as an affirmative statement for the sake of clarity and simplicity. An attempt has been made to shorten the long Hebrew sentence to better conform with contemporary English style.

[52:31]  ⁴¹ sn The parallel account in 2 Kgs 25:28 has “twenty-seventh.”

[52:31]  ⁴² sn The twenty-fifth day would be March 20, 561 b.c. in modern reckoning.

[52:31]  ⁴³ tn Heb “lifted up the head of.”