Jeremiah 42:2-3

42:2 They said to him, “Please grant our request ¹  and pray to the Lord your God for all those of us who are still left alive here. ²  For, as you yourself can see, there are only a few of us left out of the many there were before. ³  42:3 Pray that the Lord your God will tell us where we should go and what we should do.”

Jeremiah 42:20

42:20 You are making a fatal mistake. ⁴  For you sent me to the Lord your God and asked me, ‘Pray to the Lord our God for us. Tell us what the Lord our God says and we will do it.’ ⁵ 

Acts 28:22

28:22 But we would like to hear from you what you think, for regarding this sect we know ⁶  that people ⁷  everywhere speak against ⁸  it.”

[42:2]  ¹ tn Heb “please let our petition fall before you.” For the idiom here see 37:20 and the translator’s note there.

[42:2]  ² tn Heb “on behalf of us, [that is] on behalf of all this remnant.”

[42:2]  ³ tn Heb “For we are left a few from the many as your eyes are seeing us.” The words “used to be” are not in the text but are implicit. These words are supplied in the translation for clarity and smoothness of English style.

[42:20]  ⁴ tn Heb “you are erring at the cost of your own lives” (BDB 1073 s.v. תָּעָה Hiph.3 and HALOT 1626 s.v. תָּעָה Hif 4, and cf. BDB 90 s.v. בְּ 3 and see parallels in 1 Kgs 2:23; 2 Sam 23:17 for the nuance of “at the cost of your lives”). This fits the context better than “you are deceiving yourselves” (KBL 1035 s.v. תָּעָה Hif 4). The reading here follows the Qere הִתְעֵיתֶם (hit’etem) rather than the Kethib which has a metathesis of י (yod) and ת (tav), i.e., הִתְעֵתֶים. The Greek text presupposes הֲרֵעֹתֶם (hare’otem, “you have done evil”), but that reading is generally rejected as secondary.

[42:20]  ⁵ tn Heb “According to all which the Lord our God says so tell us and we will do.” The restructuring of the sentence is intended to better reflect contemporary English style.

[28:22]  ⁶ tn Grk “regarding this sect it is known to us.” The passive construction “it is known to us” has been converted to an active one to simplify the translation.

[28:22]  ⁷ tn Grk “that everywhere it is spoken against.” To simplify the translation the passive construction “it is spoken against” has been converted to an active one with the subject “people” supplied.

[28:22]  ⁸ tn On the term translated “speak against,” see BDAG 89 s.v. ἀντιλέγω 1.