Jeremiah 4:1

4:1 “If you, Israel, want to come back,” says the Lord,

“if you want to come back to me ¹ 

you must get those disgusting idols ²  out of my sight

and must no longer go astray. ³ 

Jeremiah 15:19

15:19 Because of this, the Lord said, ⁴ 

“You must repent of such words and thoughts!

If you do, I will restore you to the privilege of serving me. ⁵ 

If you say what is worthwhile instead of what is worthless,

I will again allow you to be my spokesman. ⁶ 

They must become as you have been.

You must not become like them. ⁷ 

Jeremiah 3:7

3:7 Yet even after she had done all that, I thought that she might come back to me. ⁸  But she did not. Her sister, unfaithful Judah, saw what she did. ⁹ 

[4:1]  ¹ tn Or “If you, Israel, want to turn [away from your shameful ways (those described in 3:23-25)]…then you must turn back to me.” Or perhaps, “Israel, you must turn back…Yes, you must turn back to me.”

[4:1]  ² tn Heb “disgusting things.”

[4:1]  ³ tn Or possibly, “If you get those disgusting idols out of my sight, you will not need to flee.” This is less probable because the normal meaning of the last verb is “to wander,” “ to stray.”

[15:19]  ⁴ tn Heb “So the Lord said thus.”

[15:19]  ⁵ tn Heb “If you return [ = repent], I will restore [more literally, ‘cause you to return’] that you may stand before me.” For the idiom of “standing before” in the sense of serving see BDB 764 s.v. עָמַד Qal.1.e and compare the usage in 1 Kgs 10:8; 12:8; 17:1; Deut 10:8.

[15:19]  ⁶ tn Heb “you shall be as my mouth.”

[15:19]  ⁷ tn Heb “They must turn/return to you and you must not turn/return to them.”

[3:7]  ⁷ tn Or “I said to her, ‘Come back to me!’” The verb אָמַר (’amar) usually means “to say,” but here it means “to think,” of an assumption that turns out to be wrong (so HALOT 66.4 s.v. אמר); cf. Gen 44:28; Jer 3:19; Pss 82:6; 139:11; Job 29:18; Ruth 4:4; Lam 3:18.

[3:7]  ⁸ tn The words “what she did” are not in the text but are implicit from the context and are supplied in the translation for clarification.