Jeremiah 38:18-20

38:18 But if you do not surrender to the officers of the king of Babylon, this city will be handed over to the Babylonians ¹  and they will burn it down. You yourself will not escape from them.’” ²  38:19 Then King Zedekiah said to Jeremiah, “I am afraid of the Judeans who have deserted to the Babylonians. ³  The Babylonians might hand me over to them and they will torture me.” ⁴  38:20 Then Jeremiah answered, “You will not be handed over to them. Please obey the Lord by doing what I have been telling you. ⁵  Then all will go well with you and your life will be spared. ⁶ 

Leviticus 26:17

26:17 I will set my face against you. You will be struck down before your enemies, those who hate you will rule over you, and you will flee when there is no one pursuing you.

Leviticus 26:36

26:36 “‘As for ⁷  the ones who remain among you, I will bring despair into their hearts in the lands of their enemies. The sound of a blowing leaf will pursue them, and they will flee as one who flees the sword and fall down even though there is no pursuer.

Deuteronomy 28:25

Curses by Defeat and Deportation

28:25 “The Lord will allow you to be struck down before your enemies; you will attack them from one direction but flee from them in seven directions and will become an object of terror ⁸  to all the kingdoms of the earth.

Deuteronomy 32:24-30

32:24 They will be starved by famine,

eaten by plague, and bitterly stung; ⁹ 

I will send the teeth of wild animals against them,

along with the poison of creatures that crawl in the dust.

32:25 The sword will make people childless outside,

and terror will do so inside;

they will destroy ¹⁰  both the young man and the virgin,

the infant and the gray-haired man.

The Weakness of Other Gods

32:26 “I said, ‘I want to cut them in pieces. ¹¹ 

I want to make people forget they ever existed.

32:27 But I fear the reaction ¹²  of their enemies,

for ¹³  their adversaries would misunderstand

and say, “Our power is great, ¹⁴ 

and the Lord has not done all this!”’

32:28 They are a nation devoid of wisdom,

and there is no understanding among them.

32:29 I wish that they were wise and could understand this,

and that they could comprehend what will happen to them.”

32:30 How can one man chase a thousand of them, ¹⁵ 

and two pursue ten thousand;

unless their Rock had delivered them up, ¹⁶ 

and the Lord had handed them over?

Deuteronomy 32:2

32:2 My teaching will drop like the rain,

my sayings will drip like the dew, ¹⁷ 

as rain drops upon the grass,

and showers upon new growth.

Deuteronomy 25:4-7

25:4 You must not muzzle your ¹⁸  ox when it is treading grain.

Respect for the Sanctity of Others

25:5 If brothers live together and one of them dies without having a son, the dead man’s wife must not remarry someone outside the family. Instead, her late husband’s brother must go to her, marry her, ¹⁹  and perform the duty of a brother-in-law. ²⁰  25:6 Then ²¹  the first son ²²  she bears will continue the name of the dead brother, thus preventing his name from being blotted out of Israel. 25:7 But if the man does not want to marry his brother’s widow, then she ²³  must go to the elders at the town gate and say, “My husband’s brother refuses to preserve his brother’s name in Israel; he is unwilling to perform the duty of a brother-in-law to me!”

Isaiah 30:15-16

30:15 For this is what the master, the Lord, the Holy One of Israel says:

“If you repented and patiently waited for me, you would be delivered; ²⁴ 

if you calmly trusted in me you would find strength, ²⁵ 

but you are unwilling.

30:16 You say, ‘No, we will flee on horses,’

so you will indeed flee.

You say, ‘We will ride on fast horses,’

so your pursuers will be fast.

Ezekiel 12:12

12:12 “The prince ²⁶  who is among them will raise his belongings ²⁷  onto his shoulder in darkness, and will go out. He ²⁸  will dig a hole in the wall to leave through. He will cover his face so that he cannot see the land with his eyes.

Amos 2:14

2:14 Fast runners will find no place to hide; ²⁹ 

strong men will have no strength left; ³⁰ 

warriors will not be able to save their lives.

[38:18]  ¹ tn Heb “Chaldeans.” See the study note on 21:4 for explanation.

[38:18]  ² tn Heb “will not escape from their hand.”

[38:19]  ³ tn Heb “Chaldeans.” See the study note on 21:4 for explanation.

[38:19]  ⁴ tn Or “and they will badly abuse me.” For the usage of this verb in the situation presupposed see Judg 19:25 and 1 Sam 31:4.

[38:20]  ⁵ tn Heb “Please listen to the voice of the Lord with regard to what I have been telling you.” For the idiom “listen to the voice” = “obey” see BDB 1034 s.v. שָׁמַע 1.m. Obedience here is expressed by following the advice in the qualifying clause, i.e., what I have been telling you.

[38:20]  ⁶ tn Heb “your life [or you yourself] will live.” Compare v. 17 and the translator’s note there for the idiom.

[26:36]  ⁷ tn Heb “And.”

[28:25]  ⁸ tc The meaningless MT reading זַעֲוָה (za’avah) is clearly a transposition of the more commonly attested Hebrew noun זְוָעָה (zÿva’ah, “terror”).

[32:24]  ⁹ tn The Hebrew term קֶטֶב (qetev) is probably metaphorical here for the sting of a disease (HALOT 1091-92 s.v.).

[32:25]  ¹⁰ tn A verb is omitted here in the Hebrew text; for purposes of English style one suitable to the context is supplied.

[32:26]  ¹¹ tc The LXX reads “I said I would scatter them.” This reading is followed by a number of English versions (e.g., KJV, ASV, NIV, NCV, NRSV, NLT, CEV).

[32:27]  ¹² tn Heb “anger.”

[32:27]  ¹³ tn Heb “lest.”

[32:27]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “Our hand is high.” Cf. NAB “Our own hand won the victory.”

[32:30]  ¹⁵ tn The words “man” and “of them” are not in the Hebrew text, but are supplied in the translation for clarity.

[32:30]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “sold them” (so NAB, NIV, NRSV, NLT).

[32:2]  ¹⁷ tn Or “mist,” “light drizzle.” In some contexts the term appears to refer to light rain, rather than dew.

[25:4]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “an.” By implication this is one’s own animal.

[25:5]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “take her as wife”; NRSV “taking her in marriage.”

[25:5]  ²⁰ sn This is the so-called “levirate” custom (from the Latin term levir, “brother-in-law”), an ancient provision whereby a man who died without male descendants to carry on his name could have a son by proxy, that is, through a surviving brother who would marry his widow and whose first son would then be attributed to the brother who had died. This is the only reference to this practice in an OT legal text but it is illustrated in the story of Judah and his sons (Gen 38) and possibly in the account of Ruth and Boaz (Ruth 2:8; 3:12; 4:6).

[25:6]  ²¹ tn Heb “and it will be that.”

[25:6]  ²² tn Heb “the firstborn.” This refers to the oldest male child.

[25:7]  ²³ tn Heb “want to take his sister-in-law, then his sister in law.” In the second instance the pronoun (“she”) has been used in the translation to avoid redundancy.

[30:15]  ²⁴ tn Heb “in returning and in quietness you will be delivered.” Many English versions render the last phrase “shall be saved” or something similar (e.g., NAB, NASB, NRSV).

[30:15]  ²⁵ tn Heb “in quietness and in trust is your strength” (NASB and NRSV both similar).

[12:12]  ²⁶ sn The prince is a reference to Zedekiah.

[12:12]  ²⁷ tn The words “his belongings” are not in the Hebrew text but are implied.

[12:12]  ²⁸ tc The MT reads “they”; the LXX and Syriac read “he.”

[2:14]  ²⁹ tn Heb “and a place of refuge will perish from the swift.”

[2:14]  ³⁰ tn Heb “the strong will not increase his strength.”