Jeremiah 3:23

3:23 We know our noisy worship of false gods

on the hills and mountains did not help us. ¹ 

We know that the Lord our God

is the only one who can deliver Israel. ² 

Jeremiah 7:9

7:9 You steal. ³  You murder. You commit adultery. You lie when you swear on oath. You sacrifice to the god Baal. You pay allegiance to ⁴  other gods whom you have not previously known.

Jeremiah 8:8

8:8 How can you say, “We are wise!

We have the law of the Lord”?

The truth is, ⁵  those who teach it ⁶  have used their writings

to make it say what it does not really mean. ⁷ 

Jeremiah 27:15

27:15 For I, the Lord, affirm ⁸  that I did not send them. They are prophesying lies to you. If you ⁹  listen to them, I will drive you and the prophets who are prophesying lies out of the land and you will all die in exile.” ¹⁰ 

[3:23]  ¹ tn Heb “Truly in vain from the hills the noise/commotion [and from] the mountains.” The syntax of the Hebrew sentence is very elliptical here.

[3:23]  ² tn Heb “Truly in the Lord our God is deliverance for Israel.”

[7:9]  ³ tn Heb “Will you steal…then say, ‘We are safe’?” Verses 9-10 are one long sentence in the Hebrew text.

[7:9]  ⁴ tn Heb “You go/follow after.” See the translator’s note at 2:5 for an explanation of the idiom involved here.

[8:8]  ⁵ tn Heb “Surely, behold!”

[8:8]  ⁶ tn Heb “the scribes.”

[8:8]  ⁷ tn Heb “The lying pen of the scribes have made [it] into a lie.” The translation is an attempt to make the most common interpretation of this passage understandable for the average reader. This is, however, a difficult passage whose interpretation is greatly debated and whose syntax is capable of other interpretations. The interpretation of the NJPS, “Assuredly, for naught has the pen labored, for naught the scribes,” surely deserves consideration within the context; i.e. it hasn’t done any good for the scribes to produce a reliable copy of the law, which the people have refused to follow. That interpretation has the advantage of explaining the absence of an object for the verb “make” or “labored” but creates a very unbalanced poetic couplet.

[27:15]  ⁷ tn Heb “oracle of the Lord.”

[27:15]  ⁸ sn The verbs are again plural referring to the king and his royal advisers.

[27:15]  ⁹ tn Heb “…drive you out and you will perish, you and the prophets who are prophesying lies.”