Jeremiah 34:12-13

34:12 That was when the Lord spoke to Jeremiah, ¹  34:13 “The Lord God of Israel has a message for you. ²  ‘I made a covenant with your ancestors ³  when I brought them out of Egypt where they had been slaves. ⁴  It stipulated, ⁵ 

[34:12]  ¹ tn Heb “And the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying.” This is the resumption of the introduction in v. 8 after the lengthy description of the situation that had precipitated the Lord’s message to Jeremiah. “That was when” is intended to take the reader back to v. 8.

[34:13]  ² tn Heb “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘…’” The style adopted here has been used to avoid a longer, more complex English sentence.

[34:13]  ³ tn Heb “fathers” (also in vv. 14, 15).

[34:13]  ⁴ tn Heb “out of the house of bondage.”

[34:13]  ⁵ tn Heb “made a covenant, saying.” This was only one of several stipulations of the covenant. The form used here has been chosen as an indirect way of relating the specific stipulation that is being focused upon to the general covenant that is referred to in v. 13.