Jeremiah 3:2

3:2 “Look up at the hilltops and consider this. ¹ 

You have had sex with other gods on every one of them. ² 

You waited for those gods like a thief lying in wait in the desert. ³ 

You defiled the land by your wicked prostitution to other gods. ⁴ 

Jeremiah 3:21

3:21 “A noise is heard on the hilltops.

It is the sound of the people of Israel crying and pleading to their gods.

Indeed they have followed sinful ways; ⁵ 

they have forgotten to be true to the Lord their God. ⁶ 

Jeremiah 4:11

4:11 “At that time the people of Judah and Jerusalem ⁷  will be told,

‘A scorching wind will sweep down

from the hilltops in the desert on ⁸  my dear people. ⁹ 

It will not be a gentle breeze

for winnowing the grain and blowing away the chaff. ¹⁰ 

Jeremiah 4:18

4:18 “The way you have lived and the things you have done ¹¹ 

will bring this on you.

This is the punishment you deserve, and it will be painful indeed. ¹² 

The pain will be so bad it will pierce your heart.” ¹³ 

Jeremiah 5:4

5:4 I thought, “Surely it is only the ignorant poor who act this way. ¹⁴ 

They act like fools because they do not know what the Lord demands. ¹⁵ 

They do not know what their God requires of them. ¹⁶ 

Jeremiah 7:3

7:3 The Lord God of Israel who rules over all ¹⁷  says: Change the way you have been living and do what is right. ¹⁸  If you do, I will allow you to continue to live in this land. ¹⁹ 

Jeremiah 7:5

7:5 You must change ²⁰  the way you have been living and do what is right. You must treat one another fairly. ²¹ 

Jeremiah 10:2

10:2 The Lord says,

“Do not start following pagan religious practices. ²² 

Do not be in awe of signs that occur ²³  in the sky

even though the nations hold them in awe.

Jeremiah 12:1

12:1 Lord, you have always been fair

whenever I have complained to you. ²⁴ 

However, I would like to speak with you about the disposition of justice. ²⁵ 

Why are wicked people successful? ²⁶ 

Why do all dishonest people have such easy lives?

Jeremiah 16:17

16:17 For I see everything they do. Their wicked ways are not hidden from me. Their sin is not hidden away where I cannot see it. ²⁷ 

Jeremiah 22:21

22:21 While you were feeling secure I gave you warning. ²⁸ 

But you said, “I refuse to listen to you.”

That is the way you have acted from your earliest history onward. ²⁹ 

Indeed, you have never paid attention to me.

Jeremiah 23:12

23:12 So the paths they follow will be dark and slippery.

They will stumble and fall headlong.

For I will bring disaster on them.

A day of reckoning is coming for them.” ³⁰ 

The Lord affirms it! ³¹ 

Jeremiah 26:3

26:3 Maybe they will pay attention and each of them will stop living the evil way they do. ³²  If they do that, then I will forgo destroying them ³³  as I had intended to do because of the wicked things they have been doing. ³⁴ 

Jeremiah 26:13

26:13 But correct the way you have been living and do what is right. ³⁵  Obey the Lord your God. If you do, the Lord will forgo destroying you as he threatened he would. ³⁶ 

Jeremiah 31:21

31:21 I will say, ³⁷  ‘My dear children of Israel, ³⁸  keep in mind

the road you took when you were carried off. ³⁹ 

Mark off in your minds the landmarks.

Make a mental note of telltale signs marking the way back.

Return, my dear children of Israel.

Return to these cities of yours.

Jeremiah 32:39

32:39 I will give them a single-minded purpose to live in a way that always shows respect for me. They will want to do that for ⁴⁰  their own good and the good of the children who descend from them.

Jeremiah 42:3

42:3 Pray that the Lord your God will tell us where we should go and what we should do.”

Jeremiah 50:5

50:5 They will ask the way to Zion;

they will turn their faces toward it.

They will come ⁴¹  and bind themselves to the Lord

in a lasting covenant that will never be forgotten. ⁴² 

[3:2]  ¹ tn Heb “and see.”

[3:2]  ² tn Heb “Where have you not been ravished?” The rhetorical question expects the answer “nowhere,” which suggests she has engaged in the worship of pagan gods on every one of the hilltops.

[3:2]  ³ tn Heb “You sat for them [the lovers, i.e., the foreign gods] beside the road like an Arab in the desert.”

[3:2]  ⁴ tn Heb “by your prostitution and your wickedness.” This is probably an example of hendiadys where, when two nouns are joined by “and,” one expresses the main idea and the other qualifies it.

[3:21]  ⁵ tn Heb “A sound is heard on the hilltops, the weeping of the supplication of the children of Israel because [or indeed] they have perverted their way.” At issue here is whether the supplication is made to Yahweh in repentance because of what they have done or whether it is supplication to the pagan gods which is evidence of their perverted ways. The reference in this verse to the hilltops where idolatry was practiced according to 3:2 and the reference to Israel’s unfaithfulness in the preceding verse make the latter more likely. For the asseverative use of the Hebrew particle (here rendered “indeed”) where the particle retains some of the explicative nuance; cf. BDB 472-73 s.v. כִּי 1.e and 3.c.

[3:21]  ⁶ tn Heb “have forgotten the Lord their God,” but in the view of the parallelism and the context, the word “forget” (like “know” and “remember”) involves more than mere intellectual activity.

[4:11]  ⁹ tn Heb “this people and Jerusalem.”

[4:11]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “A scorching wind from the hilltops in the desert toward…”

[4:11]  ¹¹ tn Heb “daughter of my people.” The term “daughter of” is appositional to “my people” and is supplied in the translation as a term of sympathy and endearment. Compare the common expression “daughter of Zion.”

[4:11]  ¹² tn Heb “not for winnowing and not for cleansing.” The words “It will not be a gentle breeze” are not in the text but are implicit in the connection. They are supplied in the translation here for clarification.

[4:18]  ¹³ tn Heb “Your way and your deeds.”

[4:18]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “How bitter!”

[4:18]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “Indeed, it reaches to your heart.” The subject must be the pain alluded to in the last half of the preceding line; the verb is masculine, agreeing with the adjective translated “painful.” The only other possible antecedent “punishment” is feminine.

[5:4]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “Surely they are poor.” The translation is intended to make clear the explicit contrasts and qualifications drawn in this verse and the next.

[5:4]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “the way of the Lord.”

[5:4]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “the judgment [or ordinance] of their God.”

[7:3]  ²¹ tn Heb “Yahweh of armies, the God Israel.”

[7:3]  ²² tn Or “Make good your ways and your actions.” J. Bright’s translation (“Reform the whole pattern of your conduct”; Jeremiah [AB], 52) is excellent.

[7:3]  ²³ tn Heb “place” but this might be misunderstood to refer to the temple.

[7:5]  ²⁵ tn The infinitive absolute precedes the finite verb for emphasis.

[7:5]  ²⁶ tn Heb “you must do justice between a person and his fellow/neighbor.” The infinitive absolute precedes the finite verb for emphasis.

[10:2]  ²⁹ tn Heb “Do not learn the way of the nations.” For this use of the word “ways” (דֶּרֶךְ, derekh) compare for example Jer 12:16 and Isa 2:6.

[10:2]  ³⁰ tn Heb “signs.” The words “that occur” are supplied in the translation for clarity.

[12:1]  ³³ tn Or “Lord, you are fair when I present my case before you.”

[12:1]  ³⁴ tn Heb “judgments” or “matters of justice.” For the nuance of “complain to,” “fair,” “disposition of justice” assumed here, see BDB 936 s.v. רִיב Qal.4 (cf. Judg 21:22); BDB 843 s.v. צַדִּיק 1.d (cf. Ps 7:12; 11:7); BDB 1049 s.v. מִשְׁפָּט 1.f (cf. Isa 26:8; Ps 10:5; Ezek 7:27).

[12:1]  ³⁵ tn Heb “Why does the way [= course of life] of the wicked prosper?”

[16:17]  ³⁷ tn Heb “For my eyes are upon all their ways. They are not hidden from before me. And their sin is not hidden away from before my eyes.”

[22:21]  ⁴¹ tn Heb “I spoke to you in your security.” The reference is to the sending of the prophets. Compare this context with the context of 7:25. For the nuance “security” for this noun (שַׁלְוָה, shalvah) rather than “prosperity” as many translate see Pss 122:7; 30:6 and the related adjective (שָׁלֵו, shalev) in Jer 49:31; Job 16:2; 21:23.

[22:21]  ⁴² tn Heb “from your youth.” Compare the usage in 2:2; 3:24 and compare a similar idea in 7:25.

[23:12]  ⁴⁵ tn For the last two lines see 11:23 and the notes there.

[23:12]  ⁴⁶ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[26:3]  ⁴⁹ tn Heb “will turn from his wicked way.”

[26:3]  ⁵⁰ tn For the idiom and translation of terms involved here see 18:8 and the translator’s note there.

[26:3]  ⁵¹ tn Heb “because of the wickedness of their deeds.”

[26:13]  ⁵³ tn Heb “Make good your ways and your actions.” For the same expression see 7:3, 5; 18:11.

[26:13]  ⁵⁴ tn For the idiom and translation of terms involved here see 18:8 and the translator’s note there.

[31:21]  ⁵⁷ tn The words “I will say” are not in the text. They are supplied in the translation to mark the transition from the address about Israel in a response to Rachel’s weeping (vv. 15-20) to a direct address to Israel which is essentially the answer to Israel’s prayer of penitence (cf. G. L. Keown, P. J. Scalise, T. G. Smothers, Jeremiah 26-52 [WBC], 121.)

[31:21]  ⁵⁸ tn Heb “Virgin Israel.” For the significance see the study note on 31:3.

[31:21]  ⁵⁹ tn Heb “Set your mind to the highway, the way which you went.” The phrase “the way you went” has been translated “the road you took when you were carried off” to help the reader see the reference to the exile implicit in the context. The verb “which you went” is another example of the old second feminine singular which the Masoretes typically revocalize (Kethib הָלָכְתִּי [halakhti]; Qere הָלָכְתְּ [halakht]). The vocative has been supplied in the translation at the beginning to help make the transition from third person reference to Ephraim/Israel in the preceding to second person in the following and to identify the referent of the imperatives. Likewise, this line has been moved to the front to show that the reference to setting up sign posts and landmarks is not literal but figurative, referring to making a mental note of the way they took when carried off so that they can easily find their way back. Lines three and four in the Hebrew text read, “Set up sign posts for yourself; set up guideposts/landmarks for yourself.” The word translated “telltale signs marking the way” occurs only here. Though its etymology and precise meaning are unknown, all the lexicons agree in translating it as “sign post” or something similar based on the parallelism.

[32:39]  ⁶¹ tn Heb “I will give to them one heart and one way to [= in order that they may] fear me all the days for good to them.” The phrase “one heart” refers both to unanimity of will and accord (cf. 1 Chr 12:38 [12:39 HT]; 2 Chr 30:12) and to singleness of purpose or intent (cf. Ezek 11:19 and see BDB 525 s.v. ֵלב 4 where reference is made to “inclinations, resolutions, and determinations of the will”). The phrase “one way” refers to one way of life or conduct (cf. BDB 203 s.v. דֶּרֶךְ 6.a where reference is made to moral action and character), a way of life that is further qualified by the goal of showing “fear, reverence, respect” for the Lord. The Hebrew sentence has been broken up to avoid a long complex sentence in English which is contrary to contemporary English style. However, an attempt has been made to preserve all the connections of the original.

[50:5]  ⁶⁵ tc The translation here assumes that the Hebrew בֹּאוּ (bo’u; a Qal imperative masculine plural) should be read בָּאוּ (ba’u; a Qal perfect third plural). This reading is presupposed by the Greek version of Aquila, the Latin version, and the Targum (see BHS note a, which mistakenly assumes that the form must be imperfect).

[50:5]  ⁶⁶ sn See Jer 32:40 and the study note there for the nature of this lasting agreement.