Jeremiah 5:14

5:14 Because of that, ¹  the Lord, the God who rules over all, ²  said to me, ³ 

“Because these people have spoken ⁴  like this, ⁵ 

I will make the words that I put in your mouth like fire.

And I will make this people like wood

which the fiery judgments you speak will burn up.” ⁶ 

Jeremiah 6:21

6:21 So, this is what the Lord says:

‘I will assuredly ⁷  make these people stumble to their doom. ⁸ 

Parents and children will stumble and fall to their destruction. ⁹ 

Friends and neighbors will die.’

Jeremiah 25:5

25:5 He said through them, ¹⁰  ‘Each of you must turn from your wicked ways and stop doing the evil things you are doing. ¹¹  If you do, I will allow you to continue to live here in the land that I gave to you and your ancestors as a lasting possession. ¹² 

Jeremiah 29:21

29:21 “The Lord God of Israel who rules over all ¹³  also has something to say about Ahab son of Kolaiah and Zedekiah son of Maaseiah, who are prophesying lies to you and claiming my authority to do so. ¹⁴  ‘I will hand them over to King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon and he will execute them before your very eyes.

Jeremiah 31:35

The Lord Guarantees Israel’s Continuance

31:35 The Lord has made a promise to Israel.

He promises it as the one who fixed the sun to give light by day

and the moon and stars to give light by night.

He promises it as the one who stirs up the sea so that its waves roll.

He promises it as the one who is known as the Lord who rules over all. ¹⁵ 

Jeremiah 32:3

32:3 For King Zedekiah ¹⁶  had confined Jeremiah there after he had reproved him for prophesying as he did. He had asked Jeremiah, “Why do you keep prophesying these things? Why do you keep saying that the Lord says, ‘I will hand this city over to the king of Babylon? I will let him capture it. ¹⁷ 

Jeremiah 34:2

34:2 The Lord God of Israel told Jeremiah ¹⁸  to go and give King Zedekiah of Judah a message. He told Jeremiah ¹⁹  to tell him, “The Lord says, ‘I am going to ²⁰  hand this city over to the king of Babylon and he will burn it down.

Jeremiah 40:11

40:11 Moreover, all the Judeans who were in Moab, Ammon, Edom, and all the other countries heard what had happened. They heard that the king of Babylon had allowed some people to stay in Judah and that he had appointed Gedaliah, the son of Ahikam and grandson of Shaphan, to govern them.

Jeremiah 44:30

44:30 I, the Lord, promise that ²¹  I will hand Pharaoh Hophra ²²  king of Egypt over to his enemies who are seeking to kill him. I will do that just as surely as I handed King Zedekiah of Judah over to King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, his enemy who was seeking to kill him.’”

[5:14]  ¹ tn Heb “Therefore.”

[5:14]  ² tn Heb “The Lord God of armies.” See the translator’s note at 2:19.

[5:14]  ³ tn The words, “to me” are not in the text but are implicit in the connection. They are supplied in the translation for clarification.

[5:14]  ⁴ tn Heb “you have spoken.” The text here דַּבֶּרְכֶם (dabberkhem, “you have spoken”) is either a case of a scribal error for דַּבֶּרָם (dabberam, “they have spoken”) or an example of the rapid shift in addressee which is common in Jeremiah.

[5:14]  ⁵ tn Heb “this word.”

[5:14]  ⁶ tn Heb “like wood and it [i.e., the fire I put in your mouth] will consume them.”

[6:21]  ⁷ tn This is an attempt to render the Hebrew particle rendered “behold” joined to the first person pronoun.

[6:21]  ⁸ tn Heb “I will put stumbling blocks in front of these people.” In this context the stumbling blocks are the invading armies.

[6:21]  ⁹ tn The words “and fall to their destruction” are implicit in the metaphor and are supplied in the translation for clarity.

[25:5]  ¹³ tn Heb “saying.” The infinitive goes back to “he sent”; i.e., “he sent, saying.”

[25:5]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “Turn [masc. pl.] each person from his wicked way and from the evil of your [masc. pl.] doings.” See the same demand in 23:22.

[25:5]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “gave to you and your fathers with reference to from ancient times even unto forever.” See the same idiom in 7:7.

[29:21]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “Yahweh of armies, the God of Israel.”

[29:21]  ²⁰ tn Heb “prophesying lies in my name.” For an explanation of this idiom see the study notes on 14:14 and 23:27.

[31:35]  ²⁵ tn Heb “Yahweh of armies.” See the study note on 2:19 for this title. In the Hebrew text the verse reads: “Thus says the Lord who provides the sun for light by day, the fixed ordering of the moon and stars for light by night, who stirs up the sea and its waves roar, whose name is Yahweh of armies, ‘…’” The hymnic introduction to the quote which does not begin until v. 36 has been broken down to avoid a long awkward sentence in English. The word “said” has been translated “made a promise” to reflect the nature of the content in vv. 36-37. The first two lines of the Hebrew poetry are a case of complex or supplementary ellipsis where the complete idea of “providing/establishing the fixed laws” is divided between the two lines (cf. E. W. Bullinger, Figures of Speech, 110-13). The necessity for recombining the ellipsis is obvious from reference to the fixed ordering in the next verse. (Some commentators prefer to delete the word as an erroneous glossing of the word in the following line (see, e.g., J. Bright, Jeremiah [AB], 277, n. y).

[32:3]  ³¹ tn Heb “Zedekiah king of Judah.”

[32:3]  ³² tn The translation represents an attempt to break up a very long Hebrew sentence with several levels of subordination and embedded quotations and also an attempt to capture the rhetorical force of the question “Why…” which is probably an example of what E. W. Bullinger (Figures of Speech, 953-54) calls a rhetorical question of expostulation or remonstrance (cf. the note on 26:9 and compare also the question in 36:29. In all three of these cases NJPS translates “How dare you…” which captures the force nicely). The Hebrew text reads, “For Zedekiah king of Judah had confined him, saying, ‘Why are you prophesying, saying, “Thus says the Lord, ‘Behold I am giving this city into the hands of the king of Babylon and he will capture it.’”’”

[34:2]  ³⁷ tn Heb “told him”; the referent (Jeremiah) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[34:2]  ³⁸ tn Heb “told him”; the referent (Jeremiah) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[34:2]  ³⁹ tn Heb 34:1 “The word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord…saying, ‘Thus says the Lord God of Israel, “Go and speak to Zedekiah king of Judah and say to him, ‘Thus says the Lord, “I am going to….”’”’” The translation has tried to avoid some of the confusion that is created by embedding quotations within quotations by using indirect quotation in some instances; the conceptualization is the same but the style is simpler.

[44:30]  ⁴³ tn Heb “Thus says the Lord, ‘Behold I will hand…’” The first person and indirect quote have been chosen because the Lord is already identified as the speaker and the indirect quote eliminates an extra level of embedded quotes.

[44:30]  ⁴⁴ sn Hophra ruled over Egypt from 589-570 b.c. He was the Pharaoh who incited Zedekiah to rebel against Nebuchadnezzar and whose army proved ineffective in providing any long-term relief to Jerusalem when it was under siege (see Jer 37 and especially the study note on 37:5). He was assassinated following a power struggle with a court official who had earlier saved him from a rebellion of his own troops and had ruled as co-regent with him.