Yeremia 5:17

5:17 They will eat up your crops and your food.

They will kill off ¹  your sons and your daughters.

They will eat up your sheep and your cattle.

They will destroy your vines and your fig trees. ² 

Their weapons will batter down ³ 

the fortified cities you trust in.

Yeremia 7:4

7:4 Stop putting your confidence in the false belief that says, ⁴  “We are safe! ⁵  The temple of the Lord is here! The temple of the Lord is here! The temple of the Lord is here!” ⁶ 

Yeremia 7:8

7:8 “‘But just look at you! ⁷  You are putting your confidence in a false belief ⁸  that will not deliver you. ⁹ 

Yeremia 9:4

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

He must not even trust any of his relatives. ¹⁰ 

For every one of them will find some way to cheat him. ¹¹ 

And all of his friends will tell lies about him.

Yeremia 13:25

13:25 This is your fate,

the destiny to which I have appointed you,

because you have forgotten me

and have trusted in false gods.

Yeremia 46:25

46:25 The Lord God of Israel who rules over all ¹²  says, “I will punish Amon, the god of Thebes. ¹³  I will punish Egypt, its gods, and its kings. I will punish Pharaoh and all who trust in him. ¹⁴ 

Yeremia 48:7

48:7 “Moab, you trust in the things you do and in your riches.

So you too will be conquered.

Your god Chemosh ¹⁵  will go into exile ¹⁶ 

along with his priests and his officials.

[5:17]  ¹ tn Heb “eat up.”

[5:17]  ² tn Or “eat up your grapes and figs”; Heb “eat up your vines and your fig trees.”

[5:17]  sn It was typical for an army in time of war in the ancient Near East not only to eat up the crops but to destroy the means of further production.

[5:17]  ³ tn Heb “They will beat down with the sword.” The term “sword” is a figure of speech (synecdoche) for military weapons in general. Siege ramps, not swords, beat down city walls; swords kill people, not city walls.

[7:4]  ⁴ tn Heb “Stop trusting in lying words which say.”

[7:4]  ⁵ tn The words “We are safe!” are not in the text but are supplied in the translation for clarity.

[7:4]  ⁶ tn Heb “The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord are these (i.e., these buildings).” Elsewhere triple repetition seems to mark a kind of emphasis (cf. Isa 6:3; Jer 22:29; Ezek 21:27 [32 HT]). The triple repetition that follows seems to be Jeremiah’s way of mocking the (false) sense of security that people had in the invincibility of Jerusalem because God dwelt in the temple. They appeared to be treating the temple as some kind of magical charm. A similar feeling had grown up around the ark in the time of the judges (cf. 1 Sam 3:3) and the temple and city of Jerusalem in Micah’s day (cf. Mic 3:11). It is reflected also in some of the Psalms (cf., e.g., Ps 46, especially v. 5).

[7:8]  ⁷ tn Heb “Behold!”

[7:8]  ⁸ tn Heb “You are trusting in lying words.” See the similar phrase in v. 4 and the note there.

[7:8]  ⁹ tn Heb “not profit [you].”

[9:4]  ¹⁰ 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]  ¹¹ tn Heb “cheating, each of them will cheat.”

[9:4]  sn There is perhaps an intentional pun and allusion here to Gen 27:36 and the wordplay on the name Jacob there. The text here reads עָקוֹב יַעְקֹב (’aqob ya’qob).

[46:25]  ¹² tn Heb “Yahweh of armies, the God of Israel.” For the significance of this title see the note at 2:19.

[46:25]  ¹³ tn Heb “Amon of No.”

[46:25]  sn The Egyptian city called No (נֹא, no’) in Hebrew was Thebes. It is located about 400 miles (666 km) south of modern-day Cairo. It was the capital of Upper or southern Egypt and the center for the worship of the God Amon who became the state god of Egypt. Thebes is perhaps best known today for the magnificent temples at Karnak and Luxor on the east bank of the Nile.

[46:25]  ¹⁴ tc Heb “Behold I will punish Amon of No and Pharaoh and Egypt and its gods and its kings and Pharaoh and all who trust in him.” There appears to be a copyist slip involving a double writing of וְעַל־פַּרְעֹה (vÿ’al-par’oh). The present translation has followed the suggestion of BHS and deleted the first one since the second is necessary for the syntactical connection, “Pharaoh and all who trust in him.”

[48:7]  ¹⁵ sn Chemosh was the national god of Moab (see also Numb 21:29). Child sacrifice appears to have been a part of his worship (2 Kgs 3:27). Solomon built a high place in Jerusalem for him (1 Kgs 11:7), and he appears to have been worshiped in Israel until Josiah tore that high place down (2 Kgs 23:13).

[48:7]  ¹⁶ sn The practice of carrying off the gods of captive nations has already been mentioned in the study note on 43:12. See also Isa 46:1-2 noted there.