Jeremiah 4:2

4:2 You must be truthful, honest and upright

when you take an oath saying, ‘As surely as the Lord lives!’ ¹ 

If you do, ²  the nations will pray to be as blessed by him as you are

and will make him the object of their boasting.” ³ 

Jeremiah 5:2

5:2 These people make promises in the name of the Lord. ⁴ 

But the fact is, ⁵  what they swear to is really a lie.” ⁶ 

Jeremiah 7:9

7:9 You steal. ⁷  You murder. You commit adultery. You lie when you swear on oath. You sacrifice to the god Baal. You pay allegiance to ⁸  other gods whom you have not previously known.

Isaiah 48:1-2

The Lord Appeals to the Exiles

48:1 Listen to this, O family of Jacob, ⁹ 

you who are called by the name ‘Israel,’

and are descended from Judah, ¹⁰ 

who take oaths in the name of the Lord,

and invoke ¹¹  the God of Israel –

but not in an honest and just manner. ¹² 

48:2 Indeed, they live in the holy city; ¹³ 

they trust in ¹⁴  the God of Israel,

whose name is the Lord who commands armies.

Zephaniah 1:4-5

1:4 “I will attack ¹⁵  Judah

and all who live in Jerusalem. ¹⁶ 

I will remove ¹⁷  from this place every trace of Baal worship, ¹⁸ 

as well as the very memory ¹⁹  of the pagan priests. ²⁰ 

1:5 I will remove ²¹  those who worship the stars in the sky from their rooftops, ²² 

those who swear allegiance to the Lord ²³  while taking oaths in the name of ²⁴  their ‘king,’ ²⁵ 

[4:2]  ¹ tn Heb “If you [= you must, see the translator’s note on the word “do” later in this verse] swear/take an oath, ‘As the Lord lives,’ in truth, justice, and righteousness…”

[4:2]  ² tn 4:1-2a consists of a number of “if” clauses, two of which are formally introduced by the Hebrew particle אִם (’im) while the others are introduced by the conjunction “and,” followed by a conjunction (“and” = “then”) with a perfect in 4:2b which introduces the consequence. The translation “You must…. If you do,” was chosen to avoid a long and complicated sentence.

[4:2]  ³ tn Heb “bless themselves in him and make their boasts in him.”

[5:2]  ⁴ tn Heb “Though they say, ‘As surely as the Lord lives.” The idea of “swear on oath” comes from the second line.

[5:2]  ⁵ tc The translation follows many Hebrew mss and the Syriac version in reading “surely” (אָכֵן, ’akhen) instead of “therefore” (לָכֵן, lakhen) in the MT.

[5:2]  ⁶ tn Heb “they swear falsely.”

[7:9]  ⁷ tn Heb “Will you steal…then say, ‘We are safe’?” Verses 9-10 are one long sentence in the Hebrew text.

[7:9]  ⁸ tn Heb “You go/follow after.” See the translator’s note at 2:5 for an explanation of the idiom involved here.

[48:1]  ⁹ tn Heb “house of Jacob”; TEV, CEV “people of Israel.”

[48:1]  ¹⁰ tc The Hebrew text reads literally “and from the waters of Judah came out.” מִמֵּי (mimme) could be a corruption of מִמְּעֵי (mimmÿ’e, “from the inner parts of”; cf. NASB, NIV, NLT, NRSV) as suggested in the above translation. Some translations (ESV, NKJV) retain the MT reading because the Qumran scroll 1QIsa^a, which corrects a similar form to “from inner parts of” in 39:7, does not do it here.

[48:1]  ¹¹ tn Heb “cause to remember”; KJV, ASV “make mention of.”

[48:1]  ¹² tn Heb “not in truth and not in righteousness.”

[48:2]  ¹³ tn Heb “they call themselves [or “are called”] from the holy city.” The precise meaning of the statement is uncertain. The Niphal of קָרָא (qara’) is combined with the preposition מִן (min) only here. When the Qal of קָרָא is used with מִן, the preposition often indicates the place from which one is summoned (see 46:11). So one could translate, “from the holy city they are summoned,” meaning that they reside there.

[48:2]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “lean on” (so NASB, NRSV); NAB, NIV “rely on.”

[1:4]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “I will stretch out my hand against,” is an idiom for hostile action.

[1:4]  ¹⁶ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[1:4]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “cut off.”

[1:4]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “the remnant of Baal.”

[1:4]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “name.” Here the “name” is figurative for the memory of those who bear it.

[1:4]  ²⁰ tc Heb “of the pagan priests and priests.” The first word (כְּמָרִים, kÿmarim) refers to idolatrous priests in its two other appearances in the OT (2 Kgs 23:5, Hos 10:5), while the second word (כֹּהֲנִים, kohanim) is the normal term for “priest” and is used of both legitimate and illegitimate priests in the OT. It is likely that the second term, which is omitted in the LXX, is a later scribal addition to the Hebrew text, defining the extremely rare word that precedes (see J. J. M. Roberts, Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah [OTL], 167-68; cf. also NEB, NRSV). Some argue that both words are original; among the modern English versions that include both are NASB and NIV. Possibly the first word refers to outright pagan priests, while the second has in view once-legitimate priests of the Lord who had drifted into idolatrous practices. Another option is found in Adele Berlin, who translates, “the idolatrous priests among the priests,” understanding the second word as giving the general category of which the idolatrous priests are a part (Zephaniah [AB 25A], 75).

[1:5]  ²¹ tn The words “I will remove” are repeated from v. 4b for stylistic reasons. In the Hebrew text vv. 4b-6 contain a long list of objects for the verb “I will remove” in v. 4b. In the present translation a new sentence was begun at the beginning of v. 5 in keeping with the tendency of contemporary English to use shorter sentences.

[1:5]  ²² tn Heb “those who worship on their roofs the host of heaven.” The “host of heaven” included the sun, moon, planets, and stars, all of which were deified in the ancient Near East.

[1:5]  ²³ tc The MT reads, “those who worship, those who swear allegiance to the Lord.” The original form of the LXX omits the phrase “those who worship”; it may have been accidentally repeated from the preceding line. J. J. M. Roberts prefers to delete as secondary the phrase “those who swear allegiance” (J. J. M. Roberts, Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah [OTL], 168).

[1:5]  ²⁴ tn Heb “those who swear by.”

[1:5]  ²⁵ tn The referent of “their king” is unclear. It may refer sarcastically to a pagan god (perhaps Baal) worshiped by the people. Some English versions (cf. NEB, NASB, NRSV) prefer to emend the text to “Milcom,” the name of an Ammonite god (following some LXX mss, Syriac, and Vulgate) or “Molech,” a god to whom the Israelites offered their children (cf. NIV, NLT). For a discussion of the options, see Adele Berlin, Zephaniah (AB 25A), 75-77.