Jeremiah 8:8

8:8 How can you say, “We are wise!

We have the law of the Lord”?

The truth is, ¹  those who teach it ²  have used their writings

to make it say what it does not really mean. ³ 

Jeremiah 9:13

9:13 The Lord answered, “This has happened because these people have rejected my laws which I gave them. They have not obeyed me or followed those laws. ⁴ 

Jeremiah 26:4

26:4 Tell them that the Lord says, ⁵  ‘You must obey me! You must live according to the way I have instructed you in my laws. ⁶ 

Jeremiah 44:10

44:10 To this day your people ⁷  have shown no contrition! They have not revered me nor followed the laws and statutes I commanded ⁸  you and your ancestors.’

Jeremiah 2:8

2:8 Your priests ⁹  did not ask, ‘Where is the Lord?’ ¹⁰ 

Those responsible for teaching my law ¹¹  did not really know me. ¹² 

Your rulers rebelled against me.

Your prophets prophesied in the name of the god Baal. ¹³ 

They all worshiped idols that could not help them. ¹⁴ 

Jeremiah 6:19

6:19 Hear this, you peoples of the earth: ¹⁵ 

‘Take note! ¹⁶  I am about to bring disaster on these people.

It will come as punishment for their scheming. ¹⁷ 

For they have paid no attention to what I have said, ¹⁸ 

and they have rejected my law.

Jeremiah 16:11

16:11 Then tell them that the Lord says, ¹⁹  ‘It is because your ancestors ²⁰  rejected me and paid allegiance to ²¹  other gods. They have served them and worshiped them. But they have rejected me and not obeyed my law. ²² 

Jeremiah 18:18

Jeremiah Petitions the Lord to Punish Those Who Attack Him

18:18 Then some people ²³  said, “Come on! Let us consider how to deal with Jeremiah! ²⁴  There will still be priests to instruct us, wise men to give us advice, and prophets to declare God’s word. ²⁵  Come on! Let’s bring charges against him and get rid of him! ²⁶  Then we will not need to pay attention to anything he says.”

Jeremiah 31:33

31:33 “But I will make a new covenant with the whole nation of Israel ²⁷  after I plant them back in the land,” ²⁸  says the Lord. ²⁹  “I will ³⁰  put my law within them ³¹  and write it on their hearts and minds. ³²  I will be their God and they will be my people. ³³ 

Jeremiah 32:23

32:23 But when they came in and took possession of it, they did not obey you or live as you had instructed them. They did not do anything that you commanded them to do. ³⁴  So you brought all this disaster on them.

Jeremiah 44:23

44:23 You have sacrificed to other gods! You have sinned against the Lord! You have not obeyed the Lord! You have not followed his laws, his statutes, and his decrees! That is why this disaster that is evident to this day has happened to you.” ³⁵ 

[8:8]  ¹ tn Heb “Surely, behold!”

[8:8]  ² tn Heb “the scribes.”

[8:8]  ³ tn Heb “The lying pen of the scribes have made [it] into a lie.” The translation is an attempt to make the most common interpretation of this passage understandable for the average reader. This is, however, a difficult passage whose interpretation is greatly debated and whose syntax is capable of other interpretations. The interpretation of the NJPS, “Assuredly, for naught has the pen labored, for naught the scribes,” surely deserves consideration within the context; i.e. it hasn’t done any good for the scribes to produce a reliable copy of the law, which the people have refused to follow. That interpretation has the advantage of explaining the absence of an object for the verb “make” or “labored” but creates a very unbalanced poetic couplet.

[9:13]  ⁴ tn Heb “and they have not walked in it (with “it” referring to “my law”).

[26:4]  ⁷ tn Heb “thus says the Lord, ‘…’.” The use of the indirect quotation in the translation eliminates one level of embedded quotation to avoid confusion.

[26:4]  ⁸ tn Heb “by walking in my law which I set before you.”

[44:10]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “they” but as H. Freedman (Jeremiah [SoBB], 284) notes the third person is used here to include the people just referred to as well as the current addressees. Hence “your people” or “the people of Judah.” It is possible that the third person again reflects the rhetorical distancing that was referred to earlier in 35:16 (see the translator’s note there for explanation) in which case one might translate “you have shown,” and “you have not revered.”

[44:10]  ¹¹ tn Heb “to set before.” According to BDB 817 s.v. פָּנֶה II.4.b(g) this refers to “propounding to someone for acceptance or choice.” This is clearly the usage in Deut 30:15, 19; Jer 21:8 and is likely the case here. However, to translate literally would not be good English idiom and “proposed to” might not be correctly understood, so the basic translation of נָתַן (natan) has been used here.

[2:8]  ¹³ tn Heb “The priests…the ones who grasp my law…the shepherds…the prophets…they…”

[2:8]  ¹⁴ sn See the study note on 2:6.

[2:8]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “those who handle my law.”

[2:8]  ¹⁶ tn Or “were not committed to me.” The Hebrew verb rendered “know” refers to more than mere intellectual knowledge. It carries also the ideas of emotional and volitional commitment as well intimacy. See for example its use in contexts like Hos 4:1; 6:6.

[2:8]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “by Baal.”

[2:8]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “and they followed after those things [the word is plural] which do not profit.” The poetic structure of the verse, four lines in which a distinct subject appears at the beginning followed by a fifth line beginning with a prepositional phrase and no distinct subject, argues that this line is climactic and refers to all four classes enumerated in the preceding lines. See W. L. Holladay, Jeremiah (Hermeneia), 1:88-89. There may be a play or pun in the Hebrew text on the name for the god Baal (בַּעַל, ba’al) and the verb “cannot help you” (Heb “do not profit”) which is spelled יַעַל (ya’al).

[6:19]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “earth.”

[6:19]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “Behold!”

[6:19]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “disaster on these people, the fruit of their schemes.”

[6:19]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “my word.”

[16:11]  ¹⁹ 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]  ²⁰ tn Heb “fathers” (also in vv. 12, 13, 15, 19).

[16:11]  ²¹ tn Heb “followed after.” See the translator’s note at 2:5 for the explanation of the idiom.

[16:11]  ²² 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.

[18:18]  ²² tn Heb “They.” The referent is unidentified; “some people” has been used in the translation.

[18:18]  ²³ tn Heb “Let us make plans against Jeremiah.” See 18:18 where this has sinister overtones as it does here.

[18:18]  ²⁴ tn Heb “Instruction will not perish from priest, counsel from the wise, word from the prophet.”

[18:18]  ²⁵ tn Heb “Let us smite him with our tongues.” It is clear from the context that this involved plots to kill him.

[31:33]  ²⁵ tn Heb “with the house of Israel.” All commentators agree that the term here refers to both the whole nation which was divided into the house of Israel and the house of Judah in v. 30.

[31:33]  ²⁶ tn Heb “after those days.” Commentators are generally agreed that this refers to the return from exile and the repopulation of the land referred to in vv. 27-28 and not to something subsequent to the time mentioned in v. 30. This is the sequencing that is also presupposed in other new covenant passages such as Deut 30:1-6; Ezek 11:17-20; 36:24-28.

[31:33]  ²⁷ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[31:33]  ²⁸ tn Heb “‘But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after these days:’ says the Lord, ‘I will….’” The sentence has been reworded and restructured to avoid the awkwardness of the original style.

[31:33]  ²⁹ tn Heb “in their inward parts.” The Hebrew word here refers to the seat of the thoughts, emotions, and decisions (Jer 9:8 [9:7 HT]). It is essentially synonymous with “heart” in Hebrew psychological terms.

[31:33]  ³⁰ tn The words “and minds” is not in the text but is supplied in the translation to bring the English psychology more into line with the Hebrew where the “heart” is the center both of knowing/thinking/reflecting and deciding/willing.

[31:33]  ³¹ sn Compare Jer 24:7; 30:22; 31:1 and see the study note on 30:2.

[32:23]  ²⁸ tn Or “They did not do everything that you commanded them to do.” This is probably a case where the negative (לֹא, lo’) negates the whole category indicated by “all” (כָּל, kol; see BDB 482 s.v. כָּל 1.e(c) and compare usage in Deut 12:16; 28:14). Jeremiah has repeatedly emphasized that the history of Israel since their entry into the land has been one of persistent disobedience and rebellion (cf., e.g. 7:22-26; 11:7-8). The statement, of course, is somewhat hyperbolical as all categorical statements of this kind are.

[44:23]  ³¹ tn Heb “Because you have sacrificed and you have sinned against the Lord and you have not listened to the voice of the Lord and in his laws, in his statutes, and in his decrees you have not walked, therefore this disaster has happened to you as this day.” The text has been broken down and restructured to better conform with contemporary English style.