Jeremiah 3:25

3:25 Let us acknowledge ¹  our shame.

Let us bear the disgrace that we deserve. ² 

For we have sinned against the Lord our God,

both we and our ancestors.

From earliest times to this very day

we have not obeyed the Lord our God.’

Jeremiah 14:3

14:3 The leading men of the cities send their servants for water.

They go to the cisterns, ³  but they do not find any water there.

They return with their containers ⁴  empty.

Disappointed and dismayed, they bury their faces in their hands. ⁵ 

Psalms 44:13-16

44:13 You made us ⁶  an object of disdain to our neighbors;

those who live on our borders taunt and insult us. ⁷ 

44:14 You made us ⁸  an object of ridicule ⁹  among the nations;

foreigners treat us with contempt. ¹⁰ 

44:15 All day long I feel humiliated ¹¹ 

and am overwhelmed with shame, ¹² 

44:16 before the vindictive enemy

who ridicules and insults me. ¹³ 

Psalms 69:7-13

69:7 For I suffer ¹⁴  humiliation for your sake ¹⁵ 

and am thoroughly disgraced. ¹⁶ 

69:8 My own brothers treat me like a stranger;

they act as if I were a foreigner. ¹⁷ 

69:9 Certainly ¹⁸  zeal for ¹⁹  your house ²⁰  consumes me;

I endure the insults of those who insult you. ²¹ 

69:10 I weep and refrain from eating food, ²² 

which causes others to insult me. ²³ 

69:11 I wear sackcloth

and they ridicule me. ²⁴ 

69:12 Those who sit at the city gate gossip about me;

drunkards mock me in their songs. ²⁵ 

69:13 O Lord, may you hear my prayer and be favorably disposed to me! ²⁶ 

O God, because of your great loyal love,

answer me with your faithful deliverance! ²⁷ 

Psalms 71:13

71:13 May my accusers be humiliated and defeated!

May those who want to harm me ²⁸  be covered with scorn and disgrace!

Psalms 109:29

109:29 My accusers will be covered ²⁹  with shame,

and draped in humiliation as if it were a robe.

Ezekiel 7:18

7:18 They will wear sackcloth, terror will cover them; shame will be on all their faces, and all of their heads will be shaved bald. ³⁰ 

Micah 7:10

7:10 When my enemies see this, they will be covered with shame.

They say ³¹  to me, “Where is the Lord your God?”

I will gloat over them. ³² 

Then they will be trampled down ³³ 

like mud in the streets.

[3:25]  ¹ tn Heb “Let us lie down in….”

[3:25]  ² tn Heb “Let us be covered with disgrace.”

[14:3]  ³ tn Though the concept of “cisterns” is probably not familiar to some readers, it would be a mistake to translate this word as “well.” Wells have continual sources of water. Cisterns were pits dug in the ground and lined with plaster to hold rain water. The drought had exhausted all the water in the cisterns.

[14:3]  ⁴ tn The word “containers” is a generic word in Hebrew = “vessels.” It would probably in this case involve water “jars” or “jugs.” But since in contemporary English one would normally associate those terms with smaller vessels, “containers” may be safer.

[14:3]  ⁵ tn Heb “they cover their heads.” Some of the English versions have gone wrong here because of the “normal” use of the words translated here “disappointed” and “dismayed.” They are regularly translated “ashamed” and “disgraced, humiliated, dismayed” elsewhere (see e.g., Jer 22:22); they are somewhat synonymous terms which are often parallel or combined. The key here, however, is the expression “they cover their heads” which is used in 2 Sam 15:30 for the expression of grief. Moreover, the word translated here “disappointed” (בּוֹשׁ, bosh) is used that way several times. See for example Jer 12:13 and consult examples in BDB 101 s.v. בּוֹשׁ Qal.2. A very similar context with the same figure is found in Jer 2:36-37.

[44:13]  ⁶ tn The prefixed verbal form is a preterite (without vav [ו] consecutive).

[44:13]  ⁷ tn Heb “an [object of] taunting and [of] mockery to those around us.”

[44:14]  ⁸ tn The prefixed verbal form is a preterite (without vav [ו] consecutive).

[44:14]  ⁹ tn Heb “a proverb,” or “[the subject of] a mocking song.”

[44:14]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “a shaking of the head among the peoples.” Shaking the head was a derisive gesture (see Jer 18:16; Lam 2:15).

[44:15]  ¹¹ tn Heb “all the day my humiliation [is] in front of me.”

[44:15]  ¹² tn Heb “and the shame of my face covers me.”

[44:16]  ¹³ tn Heb “from the voice of one who ridicules and insults, from the face of an enemy and an avenger.” See Ps 8:2.

[69:7]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “carry, bear.”

[69:7]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “on account of you.”

[69:7]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “and shame covers my face.”

[69:8]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “and I am estranged to my brothers, and a foreigner to the sons of my mother.”

[69:9]  ¹⁸ tn Or “for.” This verse explains that the psalmist’s suffering is due to his allegiance to God.

[69:9]  ¹⁹ tn Or “devotion to.”

[69:9]  ²⁰ sn God’s house, the temple, here represents by metonymy God himself.

[69:9]  ²¹ tn Heb “the insults of those who insult you fall upon me.”

[69:10]  ²² sn Fasting was a practice of mourners. By refraining from normal activities such as eating food, the mourner demonstrated the sincerity of his sorrow.

[69:10]  ²³ tn Heb “and it becomes insults to me.”

[69:11]  ²⁴ tn Heb “and I am an object of ridicule to them.”

[69:12]  ²⁵ tn Heb “the mocking songs of the drinkers of beer.”

[69:13]  ²⁶ tn Heb “as for me, [may] my prayer be to you, O Lord, [in] a time of favor.”

[69:13]  ²⁷ tn Heb “O God, in the abundance of your loyal love, answer me in the faithfulness of your deliverance.”

[71:13]  ²⁸ tn Heb “those who seek my harm.”

[109:29]  ²⁹ tn Heb “clothed.” Another option is to translate the prefixed verbal forms in this line and the next as jussives (“may my accusers be covered with shame”).

[7:18]  ³⁰ tn Heb “baldness will be on their heads.”

[7:10]  ³¹ tn Heb “who say.” A new sentence was begun here in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[7:10]  ³² tn Heb “My eyes will look on them.”

[7:10]  ³³ tn Heb “a trampled-down place.”