Jeremiah 4:4

4:4 Just as ritual circumcision cuts away the foreskin

as an external symbol of dedicated covenant commitment,

you must genuinely dedicate yourselves to the Lord

and get rid of everything that hinders your commitment to me, ¹ 

people of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem.

If you do not, ²  my anger will blaze up like a flaming fire against you

that no one will be able to extinguish.

That will happen because of the evil you have done.”

Jeremiah 14:16

14:16 The people to whom they are prophesying will die through war and famine. Their bodies will be thrown out into the streets of Jerusalem ³  and there will be no one to bury them. This will happen to the men and their wives, their sons, and their daughters. ⁴  For I will pour out on them the destruction they deserve.” ⁵ 

Jeremiah 16:19

16:19 Then I said, ⁶ 

“Lord, you give me strength and protect me.

You are the one I can run to for safety when I am in trouble. ⁷ 

Nations from all over the earth

will come to you and say,

‘Our ancestors had nothing but false gods –

worthless idols that could not help them at all. ⁸ 

Jeremiah 21:12

21:12 O royal family descended from David. ⁹ 

The Lord says:

‘See to it that people each day ¹⁰  are judged fairly. ¹¹ 

Deliver those who have been robbed from those ¹²  who oppress them.

Otherwise, my wrath will blaze out against you.

It will burn like a fire that cannot be put out

because of the evil that you have done. ¹³ 

Jeremiah 30:10

30:10 So I, the Lord, tell you not to be afraid,

you descendants of Jacob, my servants. ¹⁴ 

Do not be terrified, people of Israel.

For I will rescue you and your descendants

from a faraway land where you are captives. ¹⁵ 

The descendants of Jacob will return to their land and enjoy peace.

They will be secure and no one will terrify them. ¹⁶ 

Jeremiah 44:2

44:2 “The Lord God of Israel who rules over all ¹⁷  says, ‘You have seen all the disaster I brought on Jerusalem ¹⁸  and all the towns of Judah. Indeed, they now lie in ruins and are deserted. ¹⁹ 

Jeremiah 46:27

A Promise of Hope for Israel

46:27 ²⁰ “You descendants of Jacob, my servants, ²¹  do not be afraid;

do not be terrified, people of Israel.

For I will rescue you and your descendants

from the faraway lands where you are captives. ²² 

The descendants of Jacob will return to their land and enjoy peace.

They will be secure and no one will terrify them.

[4:4]  ¹ tn Heb “Circumcise yourselves to the Lord and remove the foreskin of your heart.” The translation is again an attempt to bring out the meaning of a metaphor. The mention of the “foreskin of the heart” shows that the passage is obviously metaphorical and involves heart attitude, not an external rite.

[4:4]  ² tn Heb “lest.”

[14:16]  ³ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[14:16]  ⁴ tn Heb “And the people to whom they are prophesying will be thrown out into the streets of Jerusalem and there will not be anyone to bury them, they, their wives, and their sons and their daughters.” This sentence has been restructured to break up a long Hebrew sentence and to avoid some awkwardness due to differences in the ancient Hebrew and contemporary English styles.

[14:16]  ⁵ tn Heb “their evil.” Hebrew words often include within them a polarity of cause and effect. Thus the word for “evil” includes both the concept of wickedness and the punishment for it. Other words that function this way are “iniquity” = “guilt [of iniquity]” = “punishment [for iniquity].” Context determines which nuance is proper.

[16:19]  ⁵ tn The words “Then I said” are not in the text. They are supplied in the translation to show the shift from God, who has been speaking to Jeremiah, to Jeremiah, who here addresses God.

[16:19]  ⁶ tn Heb “O Lord, my strength and my fortress, my refuge in the day of trouble. The literal which piles up attributes is of course more forceful than the predications. However, piling up poetic metaphors like this adds to the length of the English sentence and risks lack of understanding on the part of some readers. Some rhetorical force has been sacrificed for the sake of clarity.

[16:19]  ⁷ tn Once again the translation has sacrificed some of the rhetorical force for the sake of clarity and English style: Heb “Only falsehood did our ancestors possess, vanity and [things in which?] there was no one profiting in them.”

[21:12]  ⁷ tn Heb “house of David.” This is essentially equivalent to the royal court in v. 11.

[21:12]  ⁸ tn Heb “to the morning” = “morning by morning” or “each morning.” See Isa 33:2 and Amos 4:4 for parallel usage.

[21:12]  ⁹ sn The kings of Israel and Judah were responsible for justice. See Pss 122:5. The king himself was the final court of appeals judging from the incident of David with the wise woman of Tekoa (2 Sam 14), Solomon and the two prostitutes (1 Kgs 3:16-28), and Absalom’s attempts to win the hearts of the people of Israel by interfering with due process (2 Sam 15:2-4). How the system was designed to operate may be seen from 2 Chr 19:4-11.

[21:12]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “from the hand [or power] of.”

[21:12]  ¹¹ tn Heb “Lest my wrath go out like fire and burn with no one to put it out because of the evil of your deeds.”

[30:10]  ⁹ tn Heb “So do not be afraid, my servant Jacob, oracle of the Lord.” Here and elsewhere in the verse the terms Jacob and Israel are poetic for the people of Israel descended from the patriarch Jacob. The terms have been supplied throughout with plural referents for greater clarity.

[30:10]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “For I will rescue you from far away, your descendants from the land of their captivity.”

[30:10]  ¹¹ sn Compare the ideals of the Mosaic covenant in Lev 26:6, the Davidic covenant in 2 Sam 7:10-11, and the new covenant in Ezek 34:25-31.

[44:2]  ¹¹ tn Heb “Yahweh of armies, the God of Israel.” Compare 7:3 and see the study note on 2:19 for explanation and translation of this title.

[44:2]  ¹² map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[44:2]  ¹³ tn Heb “Behold, they are in ruins this day and there is no one living in them.”

[46:27]  ¹³ sn Jer 46:27-28 are virtually the same as 30:10-11. The verses are more closely related to that context than to this. But the presence of a note of future hope for the Egyptians may have led to a note of encouragement also to the Judeans who were under threat of judgment at the same time (cf. the study notes on 46:2, 13 and 25:1-2 for the possible relative dating of these prophecies).

[46:27]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “And/But you do not be afraid, my servant Jacob.” Here and elsewhere in the verse the terms Jacob and Israel are poetic for the people of Israel descended from the patriarch Jacob. The terms have been supplied throughout with plural referents for greater clarity.

[46:27]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “For I will rescue you from far away, your descendants from the land of their captivity.”