Jeremiah 4:18

4:18 “The way you have lived and the things you have done ¹ 

will bring this on you.

This is the punishment you deserve, and it will be painful indeed. ² 

The pain will be so bad it will pierce your heart.” ³ 

Jeremiah 6:4

6:4 They will say, ⁴  ‘Prepare to do battle ⁵  against it!

Come on! Let’s attack it at noon!’

But later they will say, ⁶  ‘Oh, oh! Too bad! ⁷ 

The day is almost over

and the shadows of evening are getting long.

Jeremiah 10:3

10:3 For the religion ⁸  of these people is worthless.

They cut down a tree in the forest,

and a craftsman makes it into an idol with his tools. ⁹ 

Jeremiah 10:7

10:7 Everyone should revere you, O King of all nations, ¹⁰ 

because you deserve to be revered. ¹¹ 

For there is no one like you

among any of the wise people of the nations nor among any of their kings. ¹² 

Jeremiah 18:22

18:22 Let cries of terror be heard in their houses

when you send bands of raiders unexpectedly to plunder them. ¹³ 

For they have virtually dug a pit to capture me

and have hidden traps for me to step into.

Jeremiah 20:8

20:8 For whenever I prophesy, ¹⁴  I must cry out, ¹⁵ 

“Violence and destruction are coming!” ¹⁶ 

This message from the Lord ¹⁷  has made me

an object of continual insults and derision.

Jeremiah 22:17

22:17 But you are always thinking and looking

for ways to increase your wealth by dishonest means.

Your eyes and your heart are set

on killing some innocent person

and committing fraud and oppression. ¹⁸ 

Jeremiah 23:10

23:10 For the land is full of people unfaithful to him. ¹⁹ 

They live wicked lives and they misuse their power. ²⁰ 

So the land is dried up ²¹  because it is under his curse. ²² 

The pastures in the wilderness are withered.

Jeremiah 30:17

30:17 Yes, ²³  I will restore you to health.

I will heal your wounds.

I, the Lord, affirm it! ²⁴ 

For you have been called an outcast,

Zion, whom no one cares for.”

Jeremiah 31:19

31:19 For after we turned away from you we repented.

After we came to our senses ²⁵  we beat our breasts in sorrow. ²⁶ 

We are ashamed and humiliated

because of the disgraceful things we did previously.’ ²⁷ 

Jeremiah 39:18

39:18 I will certainly save you. You will not fall victim to violence. ²⁸  You will escape with your life ²⁹  because you trust in me. I, the Lord, affirm it!”’” ³⁰ 

Jeremiah 46:23

46:23 The population of Egypt is like a vast, impenetrable forest.

But I, the Lord, affirm ³¹  that the enemy will cut them down.

For those who chop them down will be more numerous than locusts.

They will be too numerous to count. ³² 

Jeremiah 48:5

48:5 Indeed they will climb the slopes of Luhith,

weeping continually as they go. ³³ 

For on the road down to Horonaim

they will hear the cries of distress over the destruction. ³⁴ 

Jeremiah 49:13

49:13 For I solemnly swear,” ³⁵  says the Lord, “that Bozrah ³⁶  will become a pile of ruins. It will become an object of horror and ridicule, an example to be used in curses. ³⁷  All the towns around it will lie in ruins forever.”

Jeremiah 51:5

51:5 “For Israel and Judah will not be forsaken ³⁸ 

by their God, the Lord who rules over all. ³⁹ 

For the land of Babylonia is ⁴⁰  full of guilt

against the Holy One of Israel. ⁴¹ 

Jeremiah 51:51

51:51 ‘We ⁴²  are ashamed because we have been insulted. ⁴³ 

Our faces show our disgrace. ⁴⁴ 

For foreigners have invaded

the holy rooms ⁴⁵  in the Lord’s temple.’

Jeremiah 51:56

51:56 For a destroyer is attacking Babylon. ⁴⁶ 

Her warriors will be captured;

their bows will be broken. ⁴⁷ 

For the Lord is a God who punishes; ⁴⁸ 

he pays back in full. ⁴⁹ 

[4:18]  ¹ tn Heb “Your way and your deeds.”

[4:18]  ² tn Heb “How bitter!”

[4:18]  ³ tn Heb “Indeed, it reaches to your heart.” The subject must be the pain alluded to in the last half of the preceding line; the verb is masculine, agreeing with the adjective translated “painful.” The only other possible antecedent “punishment” is feminine.

[6:4]  ⁴ tn These words are not in the text but are implicit in the connection. They are supplied in the translation for clarity.

[6:4]  ⁵ tn Heb “Sanctify war.” This is probably an idiom from early Israel’s holy wars in which religious rites were to precede the battle.

[6:4]  ⁶ tn These words are not in the text but are supplied in the translation for clarity. Some commentaries and English versions see these not as the words of the enemy but as those of the Israelites expressing their fear that the enemy will launch a night attack against them and further destroy them. The connection with the next verse, however, fits better with them if they are the words of the enemy.

[6:4]  ⁷ tn Heb “Woe to us!” For the usage of this phrase see the translator’s note on 4:13. The usage of this particle here is a little exaggerated. They have lost the most advantageous time for attack but they are scarcely in a hopeless or doomed situation. The equivalent in English slang is “Bad news!”

[10:3]  ⁷ tn Heb “statutes.” According to BDB 350 s.v. חֻקָּה 2.b it refers to the firmly established customs or practices of the pagan nations. Compare the usage in Lev 20:23; 2 Kgs 17:8. Here it is essentially equivalent to דֶּרֶךְ (derekh) in v. 1, which has already been translated “religious practices.”

[10:3]  ⁸ sn This passage is dripping with sarcasm. It begins by talking about the “statutes” of the pagan peoples as a “vapor” using a singular copula and singular predicate. Then it suppresses the subject, the idol, as though it were too horrible to mention, using only the predications about it. The last two lines read literally: “[it is] a tree which one cuts down from the forest; the work of the hands of a craftsman with his chisel.”

[10:7]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “Who should not revere you…?” The question is rhetorical and expects a negative answer.

[10:7]  ¹¹ tn Heb “For it is fitting to you.”

[10:7]  ¹² tn Heb “their royalty/dominion.” This is a case of substitution of the abstract for the concrete “royalty, royal power” for “kings” who exercise it.

[18:22]  ¹³ tn Heb “when you bring marauders in against them.” For the use of the noun translated here “bands of raiders to plunder them” see 1 Sam 30:3, 15, 23 and BDB 151 s.v. גְּדוּד 1.

[20:8]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “speak,” but the speaking is in the context of speaking as a prophet.

[20:8]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “I cry out, I proclaim.”

[20:8]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “Violence and destruction.”

[20:8]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “the word of the Lord.” For the use of כִּי…כִּי (ki…ki) here in the sense of “for…and” see KBL 432 s.v. כּי 10.

[22:17]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “Your eyes and your heart do not exist except for dishonest gain and for innocent blood to shed [it] and for fraud and for oppression to do [them].” The sentence has been broken up to conform more to English style and the significance of “eyes” and “heart” explained before they are introduced into the translation.

[23:10]  ²² tn Heb “adulterers.” But spiritual adultery is clearly meant as also in 3:8-9; 9:2, and probably also 5:7.

[23:10]  ²³ tn For the word translated “They live…lives” see usage in Jer 8:6. For the idea of “misusing” their power (Heb “their power is not right” i.e., used in the wrong way) see 2 Kgs 7:9; 17:9. In the original text this line (really two lines in the Hebrew poetry) are at the end of the verse. However, this places the antecedent too far away and could lead to confusion. The lines have been rearranged to avoid such confusion.

[23:10]  ²⁴ tn For the use of this verb see 12:4 and the note there.

[23:10]  ²⁵ tc The translation follows the majority of Hebrew mss (מֵאָלָה, me’alah) rather than the Greek and Syriac version and a few Hebrew mss which read “because of these” (מֵאֵלֶּה [me’elleh], referring to the people unfaithful to him).

[30:17]  ²⁵ tn Again the particle כִּי (ki) appears to be intensive rather than causal. Compare the translator’s note on v. 12. It is possible that it has an adversative sense as an implicit contrast with v. 13 which expresses these concepts in the negative (cf. BDB 474 s.v. כִּי 3.e for this use in statements which are contextually closer to one another).

[30:17]  ²⁶ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[31:19]  ²⁸ tn For this meaning of the verb see HAL 374 s.v. יָדַע Nif 5 or W. L. Holladay, Concise Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon, 129. REB translates “Now that I am submissive” relating the verb to a second root meaning “be submissive.” (See HALOT 375 s.v. II יָדַע and J. Barr, Comparative Philology and the Text of the Old Testament, 19-21, for evidence for this verb. Other passages cited with this nuance are Judg 8:16; Prov 10:9; Job 20:20.)

[31:19]  ²⁹ tn Heb “I struck my thigh.” This was a gesture of grief and anguish (cf. Ezek 21:12 [21:17 HT]). The modern equivalent is “to beat the breast.”

[31:19]  ³⁰ tn Heb “because I bear the reproach of my youth.” For the plural referents see the note at the beginning of v. 18.

[39:18]  ³¹ sn Heb “you will not fall by the sword.” In the context this would include death in battle and execution as a prisoner of war.

[39:18]  ³² tn Heb “your life will be to you for spoil.” For the meaning of this idiom see the study note on 21:9 and compare the usage in 21:9; 38:2; 45:4.

[39:18]  ³³ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[46:23]  ³⁴ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.” Again the first person is adopted because the Lord is speaking and the indirect quotation is used to avoid an embedded quotation with quotation marks on either side.

[46:23]  ³⁵ tn The precise meaning of this verse is uncertain. The Hebrew text reads: “They [those who enter in great force] will cut down her forest, oracle of the Lord, though it [the forest] cannot be searched out/through for they [those who come in great force] are more numerous than locusts and there is no number to them.” Some see the reference to the forest as metaphorical of Egypt’s population which the Babylonian army decimates (H. Freedman, Jeremiah [SoBB], 298, and see BDB 420 s.v. I יַעַר 1.a which refers to the forest as a figure of foes to be cut down and destroyed and compare Isa 10:34). Others see the reference to literal trees and see the decimation of Egypt in general (C. von Orelli, Jeremiah, 329). And some see it as a continuation of the simile of the snake fleeing, the soldiers cutting down the trees because they cannot find it (J. A. Thompson, Jeremiah [NICOT], 693). However, the simile of v. 22a has already been dropped in v. 22b-d; they come against her. Hence it is probably best to see this as a continuation of the simile in v. 22c-d and see the reference to the Babylonian army coming against her, i.e., Egypt (the nation or people of Egypt), like woodcutters cutting down trees.

[48:5]  ³⁷ tn Or “Indeed her fugitives will…” It is unclear what the subject of the verbs are in this verse. The verb in the first two lines “climb” (יַעֲלֶה, ya’aleh) is third masculine singular and the verb in the second two lines “will hear” (שָׁמֵעוּ, shame’u) is third common plural. The causal particles at the beginning of the two halves of the verse suggest some connection with the preceding, so the translation assumes that the children are still the subject. In this case the singular verb would be a case of the distributive singular already referred to in the translator’s note on 46:15. The parallel passage in Isa 15:5 refers to the “fugitives” (בְּרִיחֶהָ, bÿrikheha) with the same singular verb as here and that may be the implied subject here.

[48:5]  ³⁸ tn Heb “the distresses of the cry of destruction.” Many commentaries want to leave out the word “distresses” because it is missing from the Greek version and the parallel passage in Isa 15:5. However, it is in all the Hebrew mss and in the other early versions, and it is hard to see why it would be added here if it were not original.

[49:13]  ⁴⁰ tn Heb “I swear by myself.” See 22:5 and the study note there.

[49:13]  ⁴¹ sn Bozrah appears to have been the chief city in Edom, its capital city (see its parallelism with Edom in Isa 34:6; 63:1; Jer 49:22). The reference to “its towns” (translated here “all the towns around it”) could then be a reference to all the towns in Edom. It was located about twenty-five miles southeast of the southern end of the Dead Sea apparently in the district of Teman (see the parallelism in Amos 1:12).

[49:13]  ⁴² tn See the study note on 24:9 for the rendering of this term.

[51:5]  ⁴³ tn Heb “widowed” (cf. BDB 48 s.v. אַלְמָן, an adjective occurring only here but related to the common word for “widow”). It is commonly translated as has been done here.

[51:5]  ⁴⁴ tn Heb “Yahweh of armies.” For an explanation of this rendering see the study note on 2:19.

[51:5]  ⁴⁵ tn Or “all, though their land was…” The majority of the modern English versions understand the land here to refer to the land of Israel and Judah (the text reads “their land” and Israel and Judah are the nearest antecedents). In this case the particle כִּי (ki) is concessive (cf. BDB 473 s.v. כִּי 2.c[b]). Many of the modern commentaries understand the referent to be the land of the Chaldeans/Babylonians. However, most of them feel that the line is connected as a causal statement to 51:2-4 and see the line as either textually or logically out of place. However, it need not be viewed as logically out of place. It is parallel to the preceding and gives a second reason why they are to be destroyed. It also forms an excellent transition to the next lines where the exiles and other foreigners are urged to flee and not get caught up in the destruction which is coming “because of her sin.” It might be helpful to note that both the adjective “widowed” and the suffix on “their God” are masculine singular, looking at Israel and Judah as one entity. The “their” then goes back not to Israel and Judah of the preceding lines but to the “them” in v. 4. This makes for a better connection with the following and understands the particle כִּי in its dominant usage not an extremely rare one (see the comment in BDB 473 s.v. כִּי 2.c[b]). This interpretation is also reflected in RSV.

[51:5]  ⁴⁶ sn See the note on the phrase “the Holy One of Israel” in 50:29.

[51:51]  ⁴⁶ sn The exiles lament the way they have been humiliated.

[51:51]  ⁴⁷ tn Heb “we have heard an insult.”

[51:51]  ⁴⁸ tn Heb “disgrace covers our face.”

[51:51]  ⁴⁹ tn Or “holy places, sanctuaries.”

[51:56]  ⁴⁹ tn Heb “for a destroyer is coming against her, against Babylon.”

[51:56]  ⁵⁰ tn The Piel form (which would be intransitive here, see GKC 142 §52.k) should probably be emended to Qal.

[51:56]  ⁵¹ tn Or “God of retribution.”

[51:56]  ⁵² tn The infinitive absolute emphasizes the following finite verb. Another option is to translate, “he certainly pays one back.” The translation assumes that the imperfect verbal form here describes the Lord’s characteristic actions. Another option is to take it as referring specifically to his judgment on Babylon, in which case one should translate, “he will pay (Babylon) back in full.”