Jeremiah 3:22

3:22 Come back to me, you wayward people.

I want to cure your waywardness. ¹ 

Say, ²  ‘Here we are. We come to you

because you are the Lord our God.

Jeremiah 15:7

15:7 The Lord continued, ³ 

“In every town in the land I will purge them

like straw blown away by the wind. ⁴ 

I will destroy my people.

I will kill off their children.

I will do so because they did not change their behavior. ⁵ 

Jeremiah 23:22

23:22 But if they had stood in my inner circle, ⁶ 

they would have proclaimed my message to my people.

They would have caused my people to turn from their wicked ways

and stop doing the evil things they are doing.

Jeremiah 33:7

33:7 I will restore Judah and Israel ⁷  and will rebuild them as they were in days of old. ⁸ 

Jeremiah 37:8

37:8 Then the Babylonian forces ⁹  will return. They will attack the city and will capture it and burn it down.

Jeremiah 42:12

42:12 I will have compassion on you so that he in turn will have mercy on you and allow you to return to your land.’

Jeremiah 44:5

44:5 But the people of Jerusalem and Judah ¹⁰  would not listen or pay any attention. They would not stop the wickedness they were doing nor quit sacrificing to other gods. ¹¹ 

Jeremiah 48:47

48:47 Yet in days to come

I will reverse Moab’s ill fortune.” ¹² 

says the Lord. ¹³ 

The judgment against Moab ends here.

Jeremiah 49:6

49:6 Yet in days to come

I will reverse Ammon’s ill fortune.” ¹⁴ 

says the Lord. ¹⁵ 

Jeremiah 49:39

49:39 “Yet in days to come

I will reverse Elam’s ill fortune.” ¹⁶ 

says the Lord. ¹⁷ 

[3:22]  ¹ tn Or “I will forgive your apostasies.” Heb “I will [or want to] heal your apostasies.” For the use of the verb “heal” (רָפָא, rafa’) to refer to spiritual healing and forgiveness see Hos 14:4.

[3:22]  ² tn Or “They say.” There is an obvious ellipsis of a verb of saying here since the preceding words are those of the Lord and the following are those of the people. However, there is debate about whether these are the response of the people to the Lord’s invitation, a response which is said to be inadequate according to the continuation in 4:1-4, or whether these are the Lord’s model for Israel’s confession of repentance to which he adds further instructions about the proper heart attitude that should accompany it in 4:1-4. The former implies a dialogue with an unmarked twofold shift in speaker between 3:22b-25 and 4:1-4:4 while the latter assumes the same main speaker throughout with an unmarked instruction only in 3:22b-25. This disrupts the flow of the passage less and appears more likely.

[15:7]  ³ tn The words “The Lord continued” are not in the text. They have been supplied in the translation to show the shift back to talking about the people instead of addressing them. The obvious speaker is the Lord; the likely listener is Jeremiah as in vv. 1-4.

[15:7]  ⁴ tn Heb “I have winnowed them with a winnowing fork in the gates of the land.” The word “gates” is here being used figuratively for the cities, the part for the whole. See 14:2 and the notes there.

[15:7]  ⁵ tn Or “did not repent of their wicked ways”; Heb “They did not turn back from their ways.” There is no casual particle here (either כִּי [ki], which is more formally casual, or וְ [vÿ], which sometimes introduces casual circumstantial clauses). The causal idea is furnished by the connection of ideas. If the verbs throughout this section are treated as pasts and this section seen as a lament, then the clause could be sequential: “but they still did not turn…”

[23:22]  ⁵ tn Or “had been my confidant.” See the note on v. 18.

[33:7]  ⁷ tn Heb “I will reverse [or restore] the fortunes of Judah and the fortunes of Israel.” For this idiom see the translator’s note on Jer 29:14 and see the usage in 30:3, 18; 31:23; 32:44.

[33:7]  ⁸ tn This phrase simply means “as formerly” (BDB 911 s.v. רִאשׁוֹן 3.a). The reference to the “as formerly” must be established from the context. See the usage in Judg 20:32; 1 Kgs 13:6; Isa 1:26.

[37:8]  ⁹ tn Heb “the Chaldeans.” See the study note on 21:4 for the rendering “Babylonian.” The word “forces” is supplied in the translation here for the sake of clarity.

[44:5]  ¹¹ tn There appears to be a deliberate shift in the pronouns used in vv. 2-5. “You” refers to the people living in Egypt who are being addressed (v. 2) and to the people of present and past generations to whom the Lord persistently sent the prophets (v. 4). “They” refers to the people of Jerusalem and the towns of Judah who have suffered disaster (v. 2) because of the wickedness of sacrificing to other gods (vv. 3, 5). The referents have been explicitly identified in the translation for the sake of clarity.

[44:5]  ¹² tn Heb “They did not listen or incline their ear [= pay attention] by turning from their wickedness by not sacrificing to other gods.” The לְ (lamed) + the negative + the infinitive is again epexegetical. The sentence has been restructured and more idiomatic English expressions have been used to better conform with contemporary English style but an attempt has been made to retain the basic relationships of subordination.

[48:47]  ¹³ tn See 29:14; 30:3 and the translator’s note on 29:14 for the idiom used here.

[48:47]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[49:6]  ¹⁵ tn See Jer 29:14; 30:3 and the translator’s note on 29:14 for the idiom used here.

[49:6]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[49:39]  ¹⁷ tn See Jer 29:14; 30:3 and the translator’s note on 29:14 for the idiom used here.

[49:39]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”