Jeremiah 5:22

5:22 “You should fear me!” says the Lord.

“You should tremble in awe before me! ¹ 

I made the sand to be a boundary for the sea,

a permanent barrier that it can never cross.

Its waves may roll, but they can never prevail.

They may roar, but they can never cross beyond that boundary.” ² 

Jeremiah 6:16

6:16 The Lord said to his people: ³ 

“You are standing at the crossroads. So consider your path. ⁴ 

Ask where the old, reliable paths ⁵  are.

Ask where the path is that leads to blessing ⁶  and follow it.

If you do, you will find rest for your souls.”

But they said, “We will not follow it!”

Jeremiah 17:4

17:4 You will lose your hold on the land ⁷ 

which I gave to you as a permanent possession.

I will make you serve your enemies in a land that you know nothing about.

For you have made my anger burn like a fire that will never be put out.” ⁸ 

Jeremiah 20:11

20:11 But the Lord is with me to help me like an awe-inspiring warrior. ⁹ 

Therefore those who persecute me will fail and will not prevail over me.

They will be thoroughly disgraced because they did not succeed.

Their disgrace will never be forgotten.

Jeremiah 25:12

25:12 “‘But when the seventy years are over, I will punish the king of Babylon and his nation ¹⁰  for their sins. I will make the land of Babylon ¹¹  an everlasting ruin. ¹²  I, the Lord, affirm it! ¹³ 

Jeremiah 35:6

35:6 But they answered, “We do not drink wine because our ancestor Jonadab son of Rechab commanded us not to. He told us, ‘You and your children must never drink wine.

Jeremiah 49:36

49:36 I will cause enemies to blow through Elam from every direction

like the winds blowing in from the four quarters of heaven.

I will scatter the people of Elam to the four winds.

There will not be any nation where the refugees of Elam will not go. ¹⁴ 

Jeremiah 51:62

51:62 Then say, ‘O Lord, you have announced that you will destroy this place so that no people or animals live in it any longer. Certainly it will lie desolate forever!’

[5:22]  ¹ tn Heb “Should you not fear me? Should you not tremble in awe before me?” The rhetorical questions expect the answer explicit in the translation.

[5:22]  ² tn Heb “it.” The referent is made explicit to avoid any possible confusion.

[6:16]  ³ tn The words, “to his people” are not in the text but are implicit in the interchange of pronouns in the Hebrew of vv. 16-17. They are supplied in the translation here for clarity.

[6:16]  ⁴ tn Heb “Stand at the crossroads and look.”

[6:16]  ⁵ tn Heb “the ancient path,” i.e., the path the Lord set out in ancient times (cf. Deut 32:7).

[6:16]  ⁶ tn Heb “the way of/to the good.”

[17:4]  ⁵ tc Or “Through your own fault you will lose the land…” As W. McKane (Jeremiah [ICC], 1:386) notes the ancient versions do not appear to be reading וּבְךָ (uvÿkha) as in the MT but possibly לְבַדְּךָ (lÿvaddÿkha; see BHS fn). The translation follows the suggestion in BHS fn that יָדְךָ (yadÿkha, literally “your hand”) be read for MT וּבְךָ. This has the advantage of fitting the idiom of this verb with “hand” in Deut 15:2 (see also v. 3 there). The Hebrew text thus reads “You will release your hand from your heritage.”

[17:4]  ⁶ tc A few Hebrew mss and two Greek mss read “a fire is kindled in my anger” (reading קָדְחָה, qodkha) as in 15:14 in place of “you have kindled a fire in my anger” (reading קָדַחְתֶּם, qadakhtem) in the majority of Hebrew mss and versions. The variant may be explained on the basis of harmonization with the parallel passage.

[20:11]  ⁷ sn This line has some interesting ties with Jer 15:20-21 where Jeremiah is assured by God that he is indeed with him as he promised him when he called him (1:8, 19) and will deliver him from the clutches of wicked and violent people. The word translated here “awe-inspiring” is the same as the word “violent people” there. Jeremiah is confident that his “awe-inspiring” warrior will overcome “violent people.” The statement of confidence here is, by the way, a common element in the psalms of petition in the Psalter. The common elements of that type of psalm are all here: invocation (v. 7), lament (vv. 7-10), confession of trust/confidence in being heard (v. 11), petition (v. 12), thanksgiving or praise (v. 13). For some examples of this type of psalm see Pss 3, 7, 26.

[25:12]  ⁹ tn Heb “that nation.”

[25:12]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “the land of the Chaldeans.” See the study note on 21:4 for the use of the term “Chaldeans.”

[25:12]  ¹¹ tn Heb “I will visit upon the king of Babylon and upon that nation, oracle of the Lord, their iniquity even upon the land of the Chaldeans and I will make it everlasting ruins.” The sentence has been restructured to avoid ambiguity and to conform the style more to contemporary English.

[25:12]  ¹² tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[49:36]  ¹¹ tn Or more simply, “I will bring enemies against Elam from every direction. / And I will scatter the people of Elam to the four winds. // There won’t be any nation / where the refugees of Elam will not go.” Or more literally, “I will bring the four winds against Elam / from the four quarters of heaven. / I will scatter….” However, the winds are not to be understood literally here. God isn’t going to “blow the Elamites” out of Elam with natural forces. The winds must figuratively represent enemy forces that God will use to drive them out. Translating literally would be misleading at this point.