Jeremiah 5:1-5

Judah is Justly Deserving of Coming Judgment

5:1 The Lord said, ¹ 

“Go up and down ²  through the streets of Jerusalem. ³ 

Look around and see for yourselves.

Search through its public squares.

See if any of you can find a single person

who deals honestly and tries to be truthful. ⁴ 

If you can, ⁵  then I will not punish this city. ⁶ 

5:2 These people make promises in the name of the Lord. ⁷ 

But the fact is, ⁸  what they swear to is really a lie.” ⁹ 

5:3 Lord, I know you look for faithfulness. ¹⁰ 

But even when you punish these people, they feel no remorse. ¹¹ 

Even when you nearly destroy them, they refuse to be corrected.

They have become as hardheaded as a rock. ¹² 

They refuse to change their ways. ¹³ 

5:4 I thought, “Surely it is only the ignorant poor who act this way. ¹⁴ 

They act like fools because they do not know what the Lord demands. ¹⁵ 

They do not know what their God requires of them. ¹⁶ 

5:5 I will go to the leaders ¹⁷ 

and speak with them.

Surely they know what the Lord demands. ¹⁸ 

Surely they know what their God requires of them.” ¹⁹ 

Yet all of them, too, have rejected his authority

and refuse to submit to him. ²⁰ 

Genesis 19:4

19:4 Before they could lie down to sleep, ²¹  all the men – both young and old, from every part of the city of Sodom – surrounded the house. ²² 

Nehemiah 13:26

13:26 Was it not because of things like these that King Solomon of Israel sinned? Among the many nations there was no king like him. He was loved by his God, and God made ²³  him king over all Israel. But the foreign wives made even him sin!

Proverbs 11:21

11:21 Be assured that ²⁴  the evil person will certainly be punished, ²⁵ 

but the descendants of the righteous ²⁶  will not suffer unjust judgment. ²⁷ 

Isaiah 1:5

1:5 ²⁸ Why do you insist on being battered?

Why do you continue to rebel? ²⁹ 

Your head has a massive wound, ³⁰ 

your whole body is weak. ³¹ 

Matthew 7:13

The Narrow Gate

7:13 “Enter through the narrow gate, because the gate is wide and the way is spacious that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it.

Matthew 7:2

7:2 For by the standard you judge you will be judged, and the measure you use will be the measure you receive. ³² 

Matthew 2:1-2

The Visit of the Wise Men

2:1 After Jesus was born in Bethlehem ³³  in Judea, in the time ³⁴  of King Herod, ³⁵  wise men ³⁶  from the East came to Jerusalem ³⁷  2:2 saying, “Where is the one who is born king of the Jews? For we saw his star when it rose ³⁸  and have come to worship him.”

[5:1]  ¹ tn These words are not in the text, but since the words at the end are obviously those of the Lord, they are supplied in the translation here to mark the shift in speaker from 4:29-31 where Jeremiah is the obvious speaker.

[5:1]  ² tn It is not clear who is being addressed here. The verbs are plural so they are not addressed to Jeremiah per se. Since the passage is talking about the people of Jerusalem, it is unlikely they are addressed here except perhaps rhetorically. Some have suggested that the heavenly court is being addressed here as in Job 1:6-8; 2:1-3. It is clear from Jer 23:18, 22; Amos 3:7 that the prophets had access to this heavenly counsel through visions (cf. 1 Kgs 22:19-23), so Jeremiah could have been privy to this speech through that means. Though these are the most likely addressee, it is too presumptuous to supply such an explicit addressee without clearer indication in the text. The translation will just have to run the risk of the probable erroneous assumption by most English readers that the addressee is Jeremiah.

[5:1]  ³ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[5:1]  ⁴ tn Heb “who does justice and seeks faithfulness.”

[5:1]  ⁵ tn Heb “squares. If you can find…if there is one person…then I will…”

[5:1]  ⁶ tn Heb “forgive [or pardon] it.”

[5:2]  ⁷ tn Heb “Though they say, ‘As surely as the Lord lives.” The idea of “swear on oath” comes from the second line.

[5:2]  ⁸ 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]  ⁹ tn Heb “they swear falsely.”

[5:3]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “O Lord, are your eyes not to faithfulness?” The question is rhetorical and expects a positive answer.

[5:3]  ¹¹ tn Commentaries and lexicons debate the meaning of the verb here. The MT is pointed as though from a verb meaning “to writhe in anguish or contrition” (חוּל [khul]; see, e.g., BDB 297 s.v. חוּל 2.c), but some commentaries and lexicons repoint the text as though from a verb meaning “to be sick,” thus “to feel pain” (חָלָה [khalah]; see, e.g., HALOT 304 s.v. חָלָה 3). The former appears more appropriate to the context.

[5:3]  ¹² tn Heb “They made their faces as hard as a rock.”

[5:3]  ¹³ tn Or “to repent”; Heb “to turn back.”

[5:4]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “Surely they are poor.” The translation is intended to make clear the explicit contrasts and qualifications drawn in this verse and the next.

[5:4]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “the way of the Lord.”

[5:4]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “the judgment [or ordinance] of their God.”

[5:5]  ¹⁷ tn Or “people in power”; Heb “the great ones.”

[5:5]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “the way of the Lord.”

[5:5]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “the judgment [or ordinance] of their God.”

[5:5]  ²⁰ tn Heb “have broken the yoke and torn off the yoke ropes.” Compare Jer 2:20 and the note there.

[19:4]  ²¹ tn The verb שָׁכַב (shakhav) means “to lie down, to recline,” that is, “to go to bed.” Here what appears to be an imperfect is a preterite after the adverb טֶרֶם (terem). The nuance of potential (perfect) fits well.

[19:4]  ²² tn Heb “and the men of the city, the men of Sodom, surrounded the house, from the young to the old, all the people from the end [of the city].” The repetition of the phrase “men of” stresses all kinds of men.

[13:26]  ²³ tn Heb “gave.”

[11:21]  ²⁴ tn The expression “hand to hand” refers the custom of striking hands to confirm an agreement (M. Anbar, “Proverbes 11:21; 16:15; יד ליד, «sur le champ»,” Bib 53 [1972]: 537-38). Tg. Prov 11:21 interprets it differently: “he who lifts up his hand against his neighbor will not go unpunished.”

[11:21]  ²⁵ tn Heb “will not be free.” The verb נָקָה (naqah) means “to be clean; to be empty.” In the Niphal it means “to be free of guilt; to be clean; to be innocent,” and therefore “to be exempt from punishment” (BDB 667 s.v. Niph). The phrase “will not go unpunished” (cf. NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV) is an example of tapeinosis (a negative statement that emphasizes the positive opposite statement): “will certainly be punished” (cf. TEV, CEV, NLT).

[11:21]  ²⁶ tn Heb “the seed of the righteous.” This is an idiom that describes a class of people who share the nature of righteousness (e.g., Isa 1:4; 65:23). The word “seed” (hypocatastasis) means “offspring.” Some take it literally, as if it meant that the children of the righteous will escape judgment (Saadia, a Jewish scholar who lived a.d. 882-942). The LXX translates it in a different sense: “he that sows righteousness will receive a faithful reward.”

[11:21]  ²⁷ tn Heb “will be delivered” (so NASB). The phrase “from unjust judgment” does not appear in the Hebrew but is implied by the idiom.

[1:5]  ²⁸ sn In vv. 5-9 Isaiah addresses the battered nation (5-8) and speaks as their representative (9).

[1:5]  ²⁹ tn Heb “Why are you still beaten? [Why] do you continue rebellion?” The rhetorical questions express the prophet’s disbelief over Israel’s apparent masochism and obsession with sin. The interrogative construction in the first line does double duty in the parallelism. H. Wildberger (Isaiah, 1:18) offers another alternative by translating the two statements with one question: “Why do you still wish to be struck that you persist in revolt?”

[1:5]  ³⁰ tn Heb “all the head is ill”; NRSV “the whole head is sick”; CEV “Your head is badly bruised.”

[1:5]  ³¹ tn Heb “and all the heart is faint.” The “heart” here stands for bodily strength and energy, as suggested by the context and usage elsewhere (see Jer 8:18; Lam 1:22).

[7:2]  ³² tn Grk “by [the measure] with which you measure it will be measured to you.”

[2:1]  ³³ map For location see Map5 B1; Map7 E2; Map8 E2; Map10 B4.

[2:1]  ³⁴ tn Grk “in the days.”

[2:1]  ³⁵ sn King Herod was Herod the Great, who ruled Palestine from 37 b.c. until he died in 4 b.c. He was known for his extensive building projects (including the temple in Jerusalem) and for his cruelty.

[2:1]  ³⁶ sn The Greek term magi here describes a class of wise men and priests who were astrologers (L&N 32.40).

[2:1]  ³⁷ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[2:2]  ³⁸ tn Or “in its rising,” referring to the astrological significance of a star in a particular portion of the sky. The term used for the “East” in v. 1 is ἀνατολαί (anatolai, a plural form that is used typically of the rising of the sun), while in vv. 2 and 9 the singular ἀνατολή (anatolh) is used. The singular is typically used of the rising of a star and as such should not normally be translated “in the east” (cf. BDAG 74 s.v. 1: “because of the sg. and the article in contrast to ἀπὸ ἀνατολῶν, vs. 1, [it is] prob. not a geograph. expr. like the latter, but rather astronomical…likew. vs. 9”).