Jeremiah 5:19-20

5:19 “So then, Jeremiah, ¹  when your people ²  ask, ‘Why has the Lord our God done all this to us?’ tell them, ‘It is because you rejected me and served foreign gods in your own land. So ³  you must serve foreigners ⁴  in a land that does not belong to you.’

5:20 “Proclaim ⁵  this message among the descendants of Jacob. ⁶ 

Make it known throughout Judah.

Jeremiah 16:10-13

The Lord Promises Exile (But Also Restoration)

16:10 “When you tell these people about all this, ⁷  they will undoubtedly ask you, ‘Why has the Lord threatened us with such great disaster? What wrong have we done? What sin have we done to offend the Lord our God?’ 16:11 Then tell them that the Lord says, ⁸  ‘It is because your ancestors ⁹  rejected me and paid allegiance to ¹⁰  other gods. They have served them and worshiped them. But they have rejected me and not obeyed my law. ¹¹  16:12 And you have acted even more wickedly than your ancestors! Each one of you has followed the stubborn inclinations of your own wicked heart and not obeyed me. ¹²  16:13 So I will throw you out of this land into a land that neither you nor your ancestors have ever known. There you must worship other gods day and night, for I will show you no mercy.’”

Jeremiah 22:8-9

22:8 “‘People from other nations will pass by this city. They will ask one another, “Why has the Lord done such a thing to this great city?” 22:9 The answer will come back, “It is because they broke their covenant with the Lord their God and worshiped and served other gods.”

Deuteronomy 29:22-28

29:22 The generation to come – your descendants who will rise up after you, as well as the foreigner who will come from distant places – will see ¹³  the afflictions of that land and the illnesses that the Lord has brought on it. 29:23 The whole land will be covered with brimstone, salt, and burning debris; it will not be planted nor will it sprout or produce grass. It will resemble the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, which the Lord destroyed in his intense anger. ¹⁴  29:24 Then all the nations will ask, “Why has the Lord done all this to this land? What is this fierce, heated display of anger ¹⁵  all about?” 29:25 Then people will say, “Because they abandoned the covenant of the Lord, the God of their ancestors, which he made with them when he brought them out of the land of Egypt. 29:26 They went and served other gods and worshiped them, gods they did not know and that he did not permit them to worship. ¹⁶  29:27 That is why the Lord’s anger erupted against this land, bringing on it all the curses ¹⁷  written in this scroll. 29:28 So the Lord has uprooted them from their land in anger, wrath, and great rage and has deported them to another land, as is clear today.”

Deuteronomy 29:1

Narrative Interlude

29:1 (28:69) ¹⁸  These are the words of the covenant that the Lord commanded Moses to make with the people of Israel in the land of Moab, in addition to the covenant he had made with them at Horeb. ¹⁹ 

Deuteronomy 9:8-9

9:8 At Horeb you provoked him and he was angry enough with you to destroy you. 9:9 When I went up the mountain to receive the stone tablets, the tablets of the covenant that the Lord made with you, I remained there ²⁰  forty days and nights, eating and drinking nothing.

Psalms 107:34

107:34 and a fruitful land into a barren place, ²¹ 

because of the sin of its inhabitants.

Ezekiel 14:23

14:23 They will console you when you see their behavior and their deeds, because you will know that it was not without reason that I have done everything which I have done in it, declares the sovereign Lord.”

Ezekiel 22:25-31

22:25 Her princes ²²  within her are like a roaring lion tearing its prey; they have devoured lives. They take away riches and valuable things; they have made many women widows ²³  within it. 22:26 Her priests abuse my law and have desecrated my holy things. They do not distinguish between the holy and the profane, ²⁴  or recognize any distinction between the unclean and the clean. They ignore ²⁵  my Sabbaths and I am profaned in their midst. 22:27 Her officials are like wolves in her midst rending their prey – shedding blood and destroying lives – so they can get dishonest profit. 22:28 Her prophets coat their messages with whitewash. ²⁶  They see false visions and announce lying omens for them, saying, ‘This is what the sovereign Lord says,’ when the Lord has not spoken. 22:29 The people of the land have practiced extortion and committed robbery. They have wronged the poor and needy; they have oppressed the foreigner who lives among them and denied them justice. ²⁷ 

22:30 “I looked for a man from among them who would repair the wall and stand in the gap before me on behalf of the land, so that I would not destroy it, but I found no one. ²⁸  22:31 So I have poured my anger on them, and destroyed them with the fire of my fury. I hereby repay them for what they have done, ²⁹  declares the sovereign Lord.”

[5:19]  ¹ tn The word, “Jeremiah,” is not in the text but the second person address in the second half of the verse is obviously to him. The word is supplied in the translation here for clarity.

[5:19]  ² tn The MT reads the second masculine plural; this is probably a case of attraction to the second masculine plural pronoun in the preceding line. An alternative would be to understand a shift from speaking first to the people in the first half of the verse and then speaking to Jeremiah in the second half where the verb is second masculine singular. E.g., “When you [people] say, “Why…?” then you, Jeremiah, tell them…”

[5:19]  ³ tn Heb “As you left me and…, so you will….” The translation was chosen so as to break up a rather long and complex sentence.

[5:19]  ⁴ sn This is probably a case of deliberate ambiguity (double entendre). The adjective “foreigners” is used for both foreign people (so Jer 30:8; 51:51) and foreign gods (so Jer 2:25; 3:13). See also Jer 16:13 for the idea of having to serve other gods in the lands of exile.

[5:20]  ⁵ sn The verbs are second plural here. Jeremiah, speaking for the Lord, addresses his people, calling on them to make the message further known.

[5:20]  ⁶ tn Heb “in the house of Jacob.”

[16:10]  ⁷ tn Heb “all these words/things.”

[16:11]  ⁸ tn These two sentences have been recast in English to break up a long Hebrew sentence and incorporate the oracular formula “says the Lord (Heb ‘oracle of the Lord’)” which occurs after “Your fathers abandoned me.” In Hebrew the two sentences read: “When you tell them these things and they say, ‘…’, then tell them, ‘Because your ancestors abandoned me,’ oracle of the Lord.”

[16:11]  ⁹ tn Heb “fathers” (also in vv. 12, 13, 15, 19).

[16:11]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “followed after.” See the translator’s note at 2:5 for the explanation of the idiom.

[16:11]  ¹¹ tn Heb “But me they have abandoned and my law they have not kept.” The objects are thrown forward to bring out the contrast which has rhetorical force. However, such a sentence in English would be highly unnatural.

[16:12]  ¹² sn For the argumentation here compare Jer 7:23-26.

[29:22]  ¹³ tn Heb “will say and see.” One expects a quotation to appear, but it seems to be omitted. To avoid confusion in the translation, the verb “will say” is omitted.

[29:23]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “the anger and the wrath.” This construction is a hendiadys intended to intensify the emotion.

[29:24]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “this great burning of anger”; KJV “the heat of this great anger.”

[29:26]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “did not assign to them”; NASB, NRSV “had not allotted to them.”

[29:27]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “the entire curse.”

[29:1]  ¹⁸ sn Beginning with 29:1, the verse numbers through 29:29 in the English Bible differ from the verse numbers in the Hebrew text (BHS), with 29:1 ET = 28:69 HT, 29:2 ET = 29:1 HT, 29:3 ET = 29:2 HT, etc., through 29:29 ET = 29:28 HT. With 30:1 the verse numbers in the ET and HT are again the same.

[29:1]  ¹⁹ sn Horeb is another name for Mount Sinai (which some English versions substitute here for clarity, cf. NCV, TEV, CEV, NLT).

[9:9]  ²⁰ tn Heb “in the mountain.” The demonstrative pronoun has been used in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[107:34]  ²¹ tn Heb “a salty land.”

[22:25]  ²² tn Heb “a conspiracy of her prophets is in her midst.” The LXX reads “whose princes” rather than “a conspiracy of prophets.” The prophets are mentioned later in the paragraph (v. 28). If one follows the LXX in verse 25, then five distinct groups are mentioned in vv. 25-29: princes, priests, officials, prophets, and the people of the land. For a defense of the Septuagintal reading, see L. C. Allen, Ezekiel (WBC), 2:32, and D. I. Block, Ezekiel (NICOT), 1:720, n. 4.

[22:25]  ²³ tn Heb “her widows they have multiplied.” The statement alludes to their murderous acts.

[22:26]  ²⁴ tn Or “between the consecrated and the common.”

[22:26]  ²⁵ tn Heb “hide their eyes from.” The idiom means to disregard or ignore something or someone (see Lev 20:4; 1 Sam 12:3; Prov 28:27; Isa 1:15).

[22:28]  ²⁶ tn Heb “her prophets coat for themselves with whitewash.” The expression may be based on Ezek 13:10-15.

[22:29]  ²⁷ tn Heb “and the foreigner they have oppressed without justice.”

[22:30]  ²⁸ tn Heb “I did not find.”

[22:31]  ²⁹ tn Heb “their way on their head I have placed.”