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 7:18

7:18 Children are gathering firewood, fathers are building fires with it, and women are mixing dough to bake cakes to offer to the goddess they call the Queen of Heaven. ³  They are also pouring out drink offerings to other gods. They seem to do all this just ⁴  to trouble me.

Jeremiah 7:20

7:20 So,” the Lord God ⁵  says, “my raging fury will be poured out on this land. ⁶  It will be poured out on human beings and animals, on trees and crops. ⁷  And it will burn like a fire which cannot be extinguished.”

Jeremiah 21:12

21:12 O royal family descended from David. ⁸ 

The Lord says:

‘See to it that people each day ⁹  are judged fairly. ¹⁰ 

Deliver those who have been robbed from those ¹¹  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. ¹² 

[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.”

[7:18]  ³ tn The form for “queen” is unusual. It is pointed (מְלֶכֶת [mÿlekhet] instead of מַלְכַּת [malkat]) as though the Masoretes wanted to read the word for “work” (מְלֶאכֶת [mÿle’khet]), i.e., the “hosts of,” a word that several Hebrew mss read and an understanding the LXX reflects. The other ancient and modern versions generally, however, accept it as a biform for the word “queen.”

[7:18]  ⁴ tn Heb “to provoke me.” There is debate among grammarians and lexicographers about the nuance of the Hebrew particle לְמַעַן (lÿma’an). Some say it always denotes purpose, while others say it may denote either purpose or result, depending on the context. For example, BDB 775 s.v. לְמַעַן note 1 says that it always denotes purpose, never result, but that sometimes what is really a result is represented ironically as though it were a purpose. That explanation fits nicely here in the light of the context of the next verse. The translation is intended to reflect some of that ironic sarcasm.

[7:20]  ⁵ tn Heb “Lord Yahweh.” The translation follows the ancient Jewish tradition of substituting the Hebrew word for God for the proper name Yahweh.

[7:20]  ⁶ tn Heb “this place.” Some see this as a reference to the temple but the context has been talking about what goes on in the towns of Judah and Jerusalem and the words that follow, meant as a further explanation, are applied to the whole land.

[7:20]  ⁷ tn Heb “the trees of/in the field and the fruit of/in the ground.”

[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.”