Jeremiah 52:2

52:2 He did what displeased the Lord ¹  just as Jehoiakim had done.

Jeremiah 13:23

13:23 But there is little hope for you ever doing good,

you who are so accustomed to doing evil.

Can an Ethiopian ²  change the color of his skin?

Can a leopard remove its spots? ³ 

Jeremiah 18:12

18:12 But they just keep saying, ‘We do not care what you say! ⁴  We will do whatever we want to do! We will continue to behave wickedly and stubbornly!’” ⁵ 

Jeremiah 23:22

23:22 But if they had stood in my inner circle, ⁶ 

they would have proclaimed my message to my people.

They would have caused my people to turn from their wicked ways

and stop doing the evil things they are doing.

Jeremiah 7:24

7:24 But they did not listen to me or pay any attention to me. They followed the stubborn inclinations of their own wicked hearts. They acted worse and worse instead of better. ⁷ 

Jeremiah 7:30

7:30 The Lord says, “I have rejected them because ⁸  the people of Judah have done what I consider evil. ⁹  They have set up their disgusting idols in the temple ¹⁰  which I have claimed for my own ¹¹  and have defiled it.

Jeremiah 16:12

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 

Jeremiah 18:10

18:10 But if that nation does what displeases me and does not obey me, then I will cancel the good I promised to do to it.

Jeremiah 3:17

3:17 At that time the city of Jerusalem ¹³  will be called the Lord’s throne. All nations will gather there in Jerusalem to honor the Lord’s name. ¹⁴  They will no longer follow the stubborn inclinations of their own evil hearts. ¹⁵ 

Jeremiah 11:8

11:8 But they did not listen to me or pay any attention to me! Each one of them followed the stubborn inclinations of his own wicked heart. So I brought on them all the punishments threatened in the covenant because they did not carry out its terms as I commanded them to do.’” ¹⁶ 

Jeremiah 13:10

13:10 These wicked people refuse to obey what I have said. ¹⁷  They follow the stubborn inclinations of their own hearts and pay allegiance ¹⁸  to other gods by worshiping and serving them. So ¹⁹  they will become just like these linen shorts which are good for nothing.

Jeremiah 32:30

32:30 This will happen because the people of Israel and Judah have repeatedly done what displeases me ²⁰  from their earliest history until now ²¹  and because they ²²  have repeatedly made me angry by the things they have done. ²³  I, the Lord, affirm it! ²⁴ 

[52:2]  ¹ tn Heb “what was evil in the eyes of the Lord.”

[13:23]  ² tn This is a common proverb in English coming from this biblical passage. For cultures where it is not proverbial perhaps it would be better to translate “Can black people change the color of their skin?” Strictly speaking these are “Cushites” inhabitants of a region along the upper Nile south of Egypt. The Greek text is responsible for the identification with Ethiopia. The term in Greek is actually a epithet = “burnt face.”

[13:23]  ³ tn Heb “Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots? [Then] you also will be able to do good who are accustomed to do evil.” The English sentence has been restructured and rephrased in an attempt to produce some of the same rhetorical force the Hebrew original has in this context.

[18:12]  ³ tn Heb “It is useless!” See the same expression in a similar context in Jer 2:25.

[18:12]  ⁴ tn Heb “We will follow our own plans and do each one according to the stubbornness of his own wicked heart.”

[23:22]  ⁴ tn Or “had been my confidant.” See the note on v. 18.

[7:24]  ⁵ tn Or “They went backward and not forward”; Heb “They were to the backward and not to the forward.” The two phrases used here appear nowhere else in the Bible and the latter preposition plus adverb elsewhere is used temporally meaning “formerly” or “previously.” The translation follows the proposal of J. Bright, Jeremiah (AB), 57. Another option is “they turned their backs to me, not their faces,” understanding the line as a variant of a line in 2:27.

[7:30]  ⁶ tn The words “I have rejected them” are not in the Hebrew text, which merely says “because.” These words are supplied in the translation to show more clearly the connection to the preceding.

[7:30]  ⁷ tn Heb “have done the evil in my eyes.”

[7:30]  ⁸ sn Compare, e.g., 2 Kgs 21:3, 5, 7; 23:4, 6; Ezek 8:3, 5, 10-12, 16. Manasseh had desecrated the temple by building altars, cult symbols, and idols in it. Josiah had purged the temple of these pagan elements. But it is obvious from both Jeremiah and Ezekiel that they had been replaced shortly after Josiah’s death. They were a primary cause of Judah’s guilt and punishment (see beside this passage, 19:5; 32:34-35).

[7:30]  ⁹ tn Heb “the house which is called by my name.” Cf. 7:10, 11, 14 and see the translator’s note 7:10 for the explanation for this rendering.

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

[3:17]  ⁸ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[3:17]  ⁹ tn Heb “will gather to the name of the Lord.”

[3:17]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “the stubbornness of their evil hearts.”

[11:8]  ⁹ tn Heb “So I brought on them all the terms of this covenant which I commanded to do and they did not do.” There is an interesting polarity that is being exploited by two different nuances implicit in the use of the word “terms” (דִּבְרֵי [divre], literally “words”), i.e., what the Lord “brings on” them, namely, the curses that are the penalty for disobedience and the stipulations that they are “to do,” that is, to carry out. The sentence is broken up this way in keeping with contemporary English style to avoid the long and complicated style of the original.

[13:10]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “to listen to my words.”

[13:10]  ¹¹ tn Heb “and [they follow] after.” See the translator’s note at 2:5 for the idiom.

[13:10]  ¹² tn The structure of this verse is a little unusual. It consists of a subject, “this wicked people” qualified by several “which” clauses preceding a conjunction and a form which would normally be taken as a third person imperative (a Hebrew jussive; וִיהִי, vihi). This construction, called casus pendens by Hebrew grammarians, lays focus on the subject, here calling attention to the nature of Israel’s corruption which makes it rotten and useless to God. See GKC 458 §143.d for other examples of this construction.

[32:30]  ¹¹ tn Heb “that which is evil in my eyes.” For this idiom see BDB 744 s.v. עַיִן 3.c and compare usage in 18:10.

[32:30]  ¹² tn Heb “from their youth.”

[32:30]  ¹³ tn Heb “the people of Israel.” However, since “people of Israel” has been used in the preceding line for the northern kingdom as opposed to the kingdom of Judah, it might lead to confusion to translate literally. Moreover, the pronoun “they” accomplishes the same purpose.

[32:30]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “by the work of their hands.” See the translator’s note on 25:6 and the parallelism in 25:14 for this rendering rather than referring it to the making of idols as in 1:16; 10:3.

[32:30]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”