Jeremiah 6:13-15

6:13 “That is because, from the least important to the most important of them,

all of them are greedy for dishonest gain.

Prophets and priests alike,

all of them practice deceit.

6:14 They offer only superficial help

for the harm my people have suffered. ¹ 

They say, ‘Everything will be all right!’

But everything is not all right! ² 

6:15 Are they ashamed because they have done such shameful things?

No, they are not at all ashamed.

They do not even know how to blush!

So they will die, just like others have died. ³ 

They will be brought to ruin when I punish them,”

says the Lord.

Jeremiah 6:2

6:2 I will destroy ⁴  Daughter Zion, ⁵ 

who is as delicate and defenseless as a young maiden. ⁶ 

Jeremiah 25:20-21

25:20 the foreigners living in Egypt; ⁷  all the kings of the land of Uz; ⁸  all the kings of the land of the Philistines, ⁹  the people of Ashkelon, Gaza, Ekron, the people who had been left alive from Ashdod; ¹⁰  25:21 all the people of Edom, ¹¹  Moab, ¹²  Ammon; ¹³ 

Ezekiel 8:11-18

8:11 Seventy men from the elders of the house of Israel ¹⁴  (with Jaazaniah son of Shaphan standing among them) were standing in front of them, each with a censer in his hand, and fragrant ¹⁵  vapors from a cloud of incense were swirling upward.

8:12 He said to me, “Do you see, son of man, what the elders of the house of Israel are doing in the dark, each in the chamber of his idolatrous images? ¹⁶  For they think, ‘The Lord does not see us! The Lord has abandoned the land!’” 8:13 He said to me, “You will see them practicing even greater abominations!”

8:14 Then he brought me to the entrance of the north gate of the Lord’s house. I noticed ¹⁷  women sitting there weeping for Tammuz. ¹⁸  8:15 He said to me, “Do you see this, son of man? You will see even greater abominations than these!”

8:16 Then he brought me to the inner court of the Lord’s house. Right there ¹⁹  at the entrance to the Lord’s temple, between the porch and the altar, ²⁰  were about twenty-five ²¹  men with their backs to the Lord’s temple, ²²  facing east – they were worshiping the sun ²³  toward the east!

8:17 He said to me, “Do you see, son of man? Is it a trivial thing that the house of Judah commits these abominations they are practicing here? For they have filled the land with violence and provoked me to anger still further. Look, they are putting the branch to their nose! ²⁴  8:18 Therefore I will act with fury! My eye will not pity them nor will I spare ²⁵  them. When they have shouted in my ears, I will not listen to them.”

Ezekiel 11:1-11

The Fall of Jerusalem

11:1 A wind ²⁶  lifted me up and brought me to the east gate of the Lord’s temple that faces the east. There, at the entrance of the gate, I noticed twenty-five men. Among them I saw Jaazaniah son of Azzur and Pelatiah son of Benaiah, officials of the people. ²⁷  11:2 The Lord ²⁸  said to me, “Son of man, these are the men who plot evil and give wicked advice in this city. 11:3 They say, ²⁹  ‘The time is not near to build houses; ³⁰  the city ³¹  is a cooking pot ³²  and we are the meat in it.’ 11:4 Therefore, prophesy against them! Prophesy, son of man!”

11:5 Then the Spirit of the Lord came ³³  upon me and said to me, “Say: This is what the Lord says: ‘This is what you are thinking, ³⁴  O house of Israel; I know what goes through your minds. ³⁵  11:6 You have killed many people in this city; you have filled its streets with corpses.’ 11:7 Therefore, this is what the sovereign Lord says: ‘The corpses you have dumped ³⁶  in the midst of the city ³⁷  are the meat, and this city ³⁸  is the cooking pot, but I will take you out of it. ³⁹  11:8 You fear the sword, so the sword I will bring against you,’ declares the sovereign Lord. 11:9 ‘But I will take you out of the city. ⁴⁰  And I will hand you over to foreigners. I will execute judgments on you. 11:10 You will die by the sword; I will judge you at the border of Israel. Then you will know that I am the Lord. 11:11 This city will not be a cooking pot for you, and you will not ⁴¹  be meat within it; I will judge you at the border of Israel.

[6:14]  ¹ tn Heb “They heal [= bandage] the wound of my people lightly”; TEV “They act as if my people’s wounds were only scratches.”

[6:14]  ² tn Heb “They say, ‘Peace! Peace!’ and there is no peace!”

[6:15]  ³ tn Heb “They will fall among the fallen.”

[6:2]  ⁴ tn The verb here is another example of the Hebrew verb form that indicates the action is as good as done (a Hebrew prophetic perfect).

[6:2]  ⁵ sn Jerusalem is personified as a young maiden who is helpless in the hands of her enemies.

[6:2]  ⁶ tn Heb “The beautiful and delicate one I will destroy, the daughter of Zion. The English versions and commentaries are divided over the rendering of this verse because (1) there are two verbs with these same consonants, one meaning “to be like” and the other meaning “to be destroyed” (intransitive) or “to destroy” (transitive), and (2) the word rendered “beautiful” (נָוָה, navah) can be understood as a noun meaning “pasture” or as a defective writing of an adjective meaning “beautiful, comely” (נָאוָה, na’vah). Hence some render “Fair Zion, you are like a lovely pasture,” reading the verb form as an example of the old second feminine singular perfect. Although this may fit the imagery of the next verse, that rendering ignores the absence of a preposition (לְ or אֶל, lÿ or ’el, both of which can be translated “to”) that normally goes with the verb “be like” and drops the conjunction in front of the adjective “delicate.” The parallel usage of the verb in Hos 4:5 argues for the meaning “destroy.”

[25:20]  ⁷ tn The meaning of this term and its connection with the preceding is somewhat uncertain. This word is used of the mixture of foreign people who accompanied Israel out of Egypt (Exod 12:38) and of the foreigners that the Israelites were to separate out of their midst in the time of Nehemiah (Neh 13:3). Most commentators interpret it here of the foreign people who were living in Egypt. (See BDB 786 s.v. I עֶרֶב and KBL 733 s.v. II עֶרֶב.)

[25:20]  ⁸ sn The land of Uz was Job’s homeland (Job 1:1). The exact location is unknown but its position here between Egypt and the Philistine cities suggests it is south of Judah, probably in the Arabian peninsula. Lam 4:21 suggests that it was near Edom.

[25:20]  ⁹ sn See further Jer 47:1-7 for the judgment against the Philistines. The Philistine cities were west of Judah.

[25:20]  ¹⁰ sn The Greek historian Herodotus reports that Ashdod had been destroyed under the Pharaoh who preceded Necho, Psammetichus.

[25:21]  ¹¹ sn See further Jer 49:7-22 for the judgment against Edom. Edom, Moab, and Ammon were east of Judah.

[25:21]  ¹² sn See further Jer 48:1-47 for the judgment against Moab.

[25:21]  ¹³ sn See further Jer 49:1-6 for the judgment against Ammon.

[8:11]  ¹⁴ sn Note the contrast between these seventy men who represented Israel and the seventy elders who ate the covenant meal before God, inaugurating the covenant relationship (Exod 24:1, 9).

[8:11]  ¹⁵ tn The Hebrew word occurs only here in the OT.

[8:12]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “the room of his images.” The adjective “idolatrous” has been supplied in the translation for clarity.

[8:14]  ¹⁷ tn Given the context this could be understood as a shock, e.g., idiomatically “Good grief! I saw….”

[8:14]  ¹⁸ sn The worship of Tammuz included the observation of the annual death and descent into the netherworld of the god Dumuzi. The practice was observed by women in the ancient Near East over a period of centuries.

[8:16]  ¹⁹ tn The word הִנֵּה (hinneh, traditionally “behold”) indicates becoming aware of something.

[8:16]  ²⁰ sn The priests prayed to God between the porch and the altar on fast days (Joel 2:17). This is the location where Zechariah was murdered (Matt 23:35).

[8:16]  ²¹ tc The LXX reads “twenty” instead of twenty-five, perhaps because of the association of the number twenty with the Mesopotamian sun god Shamash.

[8:16]  ²² sn The temple faced east.

[8:16]  ²³ tn Or “the sun god.”

[8:17]  ²⁴ tn It is not clear what the practice of “holding a branch to the nose” indicates. A possible parallel is the Syrian relief of a king holding a flower to his nose as he worships the stars (ANEP 281). See L. C. Allen, Ezekiel (WBC), 1:145-46. The LXX glosses the expression as “Behold, they are like mockers.”

[8:18]  ²⁵ tn The meaning of the Hebrew term is primarily emotional: “to pity,” which in context implies an action, as in being moved by pity in order to spare them from the horror of their punishment.

[11:1]  ²⁶ tn Or “spirit.” See note on “wind” in 2:2.

[11:1]  ²⁷ sn The phrase officials of the people occurs in Neh 11:1; 1 Chr 21:2; 2 Chr 24:23.

[11:2]  ²⁸ tn Heb “and he”; the referent (the Lord) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[11:3]  ²⁹ tn The Hebrew verb may mean “think” in this context. This content of what they say (or think) represents their point of view.

[11:3]  ³⁰ sn The expression build houses may mean “establish families” (Deut 25:9; Ruth 4:11; Prov 24:27).

[11:3]  ³¹ tn Heb “she” or “it”; the feminine pronoun refers here to Jerusalem.

[11:3]  ³² sn Jerusalem is also compared to a pot in Ezek 24:3-8. The siege of the city is pictured as heating up the pot.

[11:5]  ³³ tn Heb “fell.”

[11:5]  ³⁴ tn The Hebrew verb commonly means “to say,” but may also mean “to think” (see also v. 3).

[11:5]  ³⁵ tn Heb “I know the steps of your spirits.”

[11:7]  ³⁶ tn Heb “placed.”

[11:7]  ³⁷ tn Heb “in its midst.”

[11:7]  ³⁸ tn Heb “she/it.” See v. 3.

[11:7]  ³⁹ tc Many of the versions read “I will bring you out” (active) rather than “he brought out” (the reading of MT).

[11:9]  ⁴⁰ tn Heb “its midst.”

[11:11]  ⁴¹ tn The Hebrew text does not have the negative particle, but it is implied. The negative particle in the previous line does double duty here.