Jeremiah 5:3-5

5:3 Lord, I know you look for faithfulness. ¹ 

But even when you punish these people, they feel no remorse. ² 

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

They have become as hardheaded as a rock. ³ 

They refuse to change their ways. ⁴ 

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

They act like fools because they do not know what the Lord demands. ⁶ 

They do not know what their God requires of them. ⁷ 

5:5 I will go to the leaders ⁸ 

and speak with them.

Surely they know what the Lord demands. ⁹ 

Surely they know what their God requires of them.” ¹⁰ 

Yet all of them, too, have rejected his authority

and refuse to submit to him. ¹¹ 

[5:3]  ¹ tn Heb “O Lord, are your eyes not to faithfulness?” The question is rhetorical and expects a positive answer.

[5:3]  ² 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]  ³ tn Heb “They made their faces as hard as a rock.”

[5:3]  ⁴ tn Or “to repent”; Heb “to turn back.”

[5:4]  ⁵ 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]  ⁶ tn Heb “the way of the Lord.”

[5:4]  ⁷ tn Heb “the judgment [or ordinance] of their God.”

[5:5]  ⁸ tn Or “people in power”; Heb “the great ones.”

[5:5]  ⁹ tn Heb “the way of the Lord.”

[5:5]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “the judgment [or ordinance] of their God.”

[5:5]  ¹¹ tn Heb “have broken the yoke and torn off the yoke ropes.” Compare Jer 2:20 and the note there.