Joshua 24:15

24:15 If you have no desire ¹  to worship ²  the Lord, choose today whom you will worship, ³  whether it be the gods whom your ancestors ⁴  worshiped ⁵  beyond the Euphrates, ⁶  or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living. But I and my family ⁷  will worship ⁸  the Lord!”

Isaiah 28:15

28:15 For you say,

“We have made a treaty with death,

with Sheol ⁹  we have made an agreement. ¹⁰ 

When the overwhelming judgment sweeps by ¹¹ 

it will not reach us.

For we have made a lie our refuge,

we have hidden ourselves in a deceitful word.” ¹² 

Jeremiah 9:3-5

The Lord Laments That He Has No Choice But to Judge Them

9:3 The Lord says, ¹³ 

“These people are like soldiers who have readied their bows.

Their tongues are always ready to shoot out lies. ¹⁴ 

They have become powerful in the land,

but they have not done so by honest means. ¹⁵ 

Indeed, they do one evil thing after another ¹⁶ 

and do not pay attention to me. ¹⁷ 

9:4 Everyone must be on his guard around his friends.

He must not even trust any of his relatives. ¹⁸ 

For every one of them will find some way to cheat him. ¹⁹ 

And all of his friends will tell lies about him.

9:5 One friend deceives another

and no one tells the truth.

These people have trained themselves ²⁰  to tell lies.

They do wrong and are unable to repent.

Jeremiah 42:20

42:20 You are making a fatal mistake. ²¹  For you sent me to the Lord your God and asked me, ‘Pray to the Lord our God for us. Tell us what the Lord our God says and we will do it.’ ²² 

[24:15]  ¹ tn Heb “if it is bad in your eyes.”

[24:15]  ² tn Or “to serve.”

[24:15]  ³ tn Or “will serve.”

[24:15]  ⁴ tn Heb “your fathers.”

[24:15]  ⁵ tn Or “served.”

[24:15]  ⁶ tn Heb “the river,” referring to the Euphrates. This has been specified in the translation for clarity; see v. 3.

[24:15]  ⁷ tn Heb “house.”

[24:15]  ⁸ tn Or “will serve.”

[28:15]  ⁹ sn Sheol is the underworld, land of the dead, according to the OT world view.

[28:15]  ¹⁰ tn Elsewhere the noun חֹזֶה (khozeh) refers to a prophet who sees visions. In v. 18 the related term חָזוּת (khazut, “vision”) is used. The parallelism in both verses (note “treaty”) seems to demand a meaning “agreement” for both nouns. Perhaps חֹזֶה and חזוּת are used in a metonymic sense in vv. 15 and 18. Another option is to propose a homonymic root. See J. N. Oswalt, Isaiah (NICOT), 1:514, and HALOT 301 s.v. II חֹזֶה.

[28:15]  ¹¹ tn Heb “the overwhelming scourge, when it passes by” (NRSV similar).

[28:15]  ¹² sn “Lie” and “deceitful word” would not be the terms used by the people. They would likely use the words “promise” and “reliable word,” but the prophet substitutes “lie” and “deceitful word” to emphasize that this treaty with death will really prove to be disappointing.

[9:3]  ¹³ tn The words “The Lord says” have been moved up from the end of the verse to make clear that a change in speaker has occurred.

[9:3]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “They have readied [or strung] their tongue as their bow for lies.”

[9:3]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “but not through honesty.”

[9:3]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “they go from evil to evil.”

[9:3]  ¹⁷ tn Or “do not acknowledge me”; Heb “do not know me.” But “knowing” in Hebrew thought often involves more than intellectual knowledge; it involves emotional and volitional commitment as well. For יָדַע meaning “acknowledge” see 1 Chr 28:9; Isa 29:21; Hos 2:20; Prov 3:6. This word is also found in ancient Near Eastern treaty contexts where it has the idea of a vassal king acknowledging the sovereignty of a greater king (cf. H. Huffmon, “The Treaty Background of Hebrew yada,” BASOR 181 [1966]: 31-37).

[9:4]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “Be on your guard…Do not trust.” The verbs are second masculine plural of direct address and there seems no way to translate literally and not give the mistaken impression that Jeremiah is being addressed. This is another example of the tendency in Hebrew style to turn from description to direct address (a figure of speech called apostrophe).

[9:4]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “cheating, each of them will cheat.”

[9:5]  ²⁰ tn Heb “their tongues.” However, this is probably not a natural idiom in contemporary English and the tongue may stand as a part for the whole anyway.

[42:20]  ²¹ tn Heb “you are erring at the cost of your own lives” (BDB 1073 s.v. תָּעָה Hiph.3 and HALOT 1626 s.v. תָּעָה Hif 4, and cf. BDB 90 s.v. בְּ 3 and see parallels in 1 Kgs 2:23; 2 Sam 23:17 for the nuance of “at the cost of your lives”). This fits the context better than “you are deceiving yourselves” (KBL 1035 s.v. תָּעָה Hif 4). The reading here follows the Qere הִתְעֵיתֶם (hit’etem) rather than the Kethib which has a metathesis of י (yod) and ת (tav), i.e., הִתְעֵתֶים. The Greek text presupposes הֲרֵעֹתֶם (hare’otem, “you have done evil”), but that reading is generally rejected as secondary.

[42:20]  ²² tn Heb “According to all which the Lord our God says so tell us and we will do.” The restructuring of the sentence is intended to better reflect contemporary English style.