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 7:5

7:5 You must change ⁴  the way you have been living and do what is right. You must treat one another fairly. ⁵ 

Jeremiah 7:30

7:30 The Lord says, “I have rejected them because ⁶  the people of Judah have done what I consider evil. ⁷  They have set up their disgusting idols in the temple ⁸  which I have claimed for my own ⁹  and have defiled it.

Jeremiah 37:15

37:15 The officials were very angry ¹⁰  at Jeremiah. They had him flogged and put in prison in the house of Jonathan, the royal secretary, which they had converted into a place for confining prisoners. ¹¹ 

Jeremiah 44:3

44:3 This happened because of the wickedness the people living there did. ¹²  They made me angry ¹³  by worshiping and offering sacrifice to ¹⁴  other gods whom neither they nor you nor your ancestors ¹⁵  previously knew. ¹⁶ 

Jeremiah 49:8

49:8 Turn and flee! Take up refuge in remote places, ¹⁷ 

you people who live in Dedan. ¹⁸ 

For I will bring disaster on the descendants of Esau.

I have decided it is time for me to punish them. ¹⁹ 

Jeremiah 49:10

49:10 But I will strip everything away from Esau’s descendants.

I will uncover their hiding places so they cannot hide.

Their children, relatives, and neighbors will all be destroyed.

Not one of them will be left!

Jeremiah 51:24

51:24 “But I will repay Babylon

and all who live in Babylonia

for all the wicked things they did in Zion

right before the eyes of you Judeans,” ²⁰ 

says the Lord. ²¹ 

[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.

[7:5]  ⁴ tn The infinitive absolute precedes the finite verb for emphasis.

[7:5]  ⁵ tn Heb “you must do justice between a person and his fellow/neighbor.” The infinitive absolute precedes the finite verb for emphasis.

[7:30]  ⁷ tn The words “I have rejected them” are not in the Hebrew text, which merely says “because.” These words are supplied in the translation to show more clearly the connection to the preceding.

[7:30]  ⁸ tn Heb “have done the evil in my eyes.”

[7:30]  ⁹ sn Compare, e.g., 2 Kgs 21:3, 5, 7; 23:4, 6; Ezek 8:3, 5, 10-12, 16. Manasseh had desecrated the temple by building altars, cult symbols, and idols in it. Josiah had purged the temple of these pagan elements. But it is obvious from both Jeremiah and Ezekiel that they had been replaced shortly after Josiah’s death. They were a primary cause of Judah’s guilt and punishment (see beside this passage, 19:5; 32:34-35).

[7:30]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “the house which is called by my name.” Cf. 7:10, 11, 14 and see the translator’s note 7:10 for the explanation for this rendering.

[37:15]  ¹⁰ sn The officials mentioned here are not the same as those mentioned in Jer 36:12, most of whom were favorably disposed toward Jeremiah, or at least regarded what he said with enough trepidation to try to protect Jeremiah and preserve the scroll containing his messages (36:16, 19, 24). All those officials had been taken into exile with Jeconiah in 597 b.c. (2 Kgs 24:14).

[37:15]  ¹¹ tn Heb “for they had made it into the house of confinement.” The causal particle does not fit the English sentence very well and “house of confinement” needs some explanation. Some translate this word “prison” but that creates redundancy with the earlier word translated “prison” (בֵּית הָאֵסוּר, bet ha’esur, “house of the band/binding”] which is more closely related to the concept of prison [cf. אָסִיר, ’asir, “prisoner”]). It is clear from the next verse that Jeremiah was confined in a cell in the dungeon of this place.

[44:3]  ¹³ tn Heb “they.” The referent must be supplied from the preceding, i.e., Jerusalem and all the towns of Judah. “They” are those who have experienced the disaster and are distinct from those being addressed and their ancestors (44:3b).

[44:3]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “thus making me angry.” However, this is a good place to break the sentence to create a shorter sentence that is more in keeping with contemporary English style.

[44:3]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “by going to offer sacrifice in serving/worshiping.” The second לְ (lamed) + infinitive is epexegetical of the first (cf. IBHS 608-9 §36.2.3e).

[44:3]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “fathers” (also in vv. 9, 10, 17, 21).

[44:3]  ¹⁷ sn Compare Jer 19:4 for the same thought and see also 7:9.

[49:8]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “make deep to dwell.” The meaning of this phrase is debated. Some take it as a reference for the Dedanites who were not native to Edom to go down from the heights of Edom and go back home (so G. L. Keown, P. J. Scalise, T. G. Smothers, Jeremiah 26-52 [WBC], 330). The majority of commentaries, however, take it as a reference to the Dedanites disassociating themselves from the Edomites and finding remote hiding places to live in (so J. A. Thompson, Jeremiah [NICOT], 718). For the options see W. L. Holladay, Jeremiah (Hermeneia), 2:375.

[49:8]  ¹⁷ sn Dedan. The Dedanites were an Arabian tribe who lived to the southeast of Edom. They are warned here to disassociate themselves from Edom because Edom is about to suffer disaster.

[49:8]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “For I will bring the disaster of Esau upon him, the time when I will punish him.” Esau was the progenitor of the tribes and nation of Edom (cf. Gen 36:1, 8, 9, 19).

[51:24]  ¹⁹ tn Or “Media, you are my war club…I will use you to smash…leaders. So before your very eyes I will repay…for all the wicked things they did in Zion.” For explanation see the translator’s note on v. 20. The position of the phrase “before your eyes” at the end of the verse after “which they did in Zion” and the change in person from second masculine singular in vv. 20b-23 (“I used you to smite”) to second masculine plural in “before your eyes” argue that a change in referent/addressee occurs in this verse. To maintain that the referent in vv. 20-23 is Media/Cyrus requires that this position and change in person be ignored; “before your eyes” then is attached to “I will repay.” The present translation follows J. A. Thompson (Jeremiah [NICOT], 757) and F. B. Huey (Jeremiah, Lamentations [NAC], 423) in seeing the referent as the Judeans who had witnessed the destruction of Zion/Jerusalem. The word “Judean” has been supplied for the sake of identifying the referent for the modern reader.

[51:24]  ²⁰ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”