Yeremia 2:25

2:25 Do not chase after other gods until your shoes wear out

and your throats become dry. ¹ 

But you say, ‘It is useless for you to try and stop me

because I love those foreign gods ²  and want to pursue them!’

Yeremia 3:10

3:10 In spite of all this, ³  Israel’s sister, unfaithful Judah, has not turned back to me with any sincerity; she has only pretended to do so,” ⁴  says the Lord.

Yeremia 4:1

4:1 “If you, Israel, want to come back,” says the Lord,

“if you want to come back to me ⁵ 

you must get those disgusting idols ⁶  out of my sight

and must no longer go astray. ⁷ 

Yeremia 7:22

7:22 Consider this: ⁸  When I spoke to your ancestors after I brought them out of Egypt, I did not merely give them commands about burnt offerings and sacrifices.

Yeremia 17:21

17:21 The Lord says, ‘Be very careful if you value your lives! ⁹  Do not carry any loads ¹⁰  in through ¹¹  the gates of Jerusalem on the Sabbath day.

Yeremia 18:12

18:12 But they just keep saying, ‘We do not care what you say! ¹²  We will do whatever we want to do! We will continue to behave wickedly and stubbornly!’” ¹³ 

Yeremia 22:25

22:25 I will hand you over to those who want to take your life and of whom you are afraid. I will hand you over to King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon and his Babylonian ¹⁴  soldiers.

Yeremia 27:12

27:12 I told King Zedekiah of Judah the same thing. I said, ¹⁵  “Submit ¹⁶  to the yoke of servitude to ¹⁷  the king of Babylon. Be subject to him and his people. Then you will continue to live.

Yeremia 34:20-21

34:20 I will hand them over to their enemies who want to kill them. Their dead bodies will become food for the birds and the wild animals. ¹⁸  34:21 I will also hand King Zedekiah of Judah and his officials over to their enemies who want to kill them. I will hand them over to the army of the king of Babylon, even though they have temporarily withdrawn from attacking you. ¹⁹ 

Yeremia 38:14

Jeremiah Responds to Zedekiah’s Request for Secret Advice

38:14 Some time later ²⁰  Zedekiah sent and had Jeremiah brought to him at the third entrance ²¹  of the Lord’s temple. The king said to Jeremiah, “I would like to ask you a question. Do not hide anything from me when you answer.” ²² 

Yeremia 49:9

49:9 If grape pickers came to pick your grapes,

would they not leave a few grapes behind? ²³ 

If robbers came at night,

would they not pillage only what they needed? ²⁴ 

Yeremia 51:9

51:9 Foreigners living there will say, ²⁵ 

‘We tried to heal her, but she could not be healed.

Let’s leave Babylonia ²⁶  and each go back to his own country.

For judgment on her will be vast in its proportions.

It will be like it is piled up to heaven, stacked up into the clouds.’ ²⁷ 

[2:25]  ¹ tn Heb “Refrain your feet from being bare and your throat from being dry/thirsty.”

[2:25]  ² tn Heb “It is useless! No!” For this idiom, see Jer 18:12; NEB “No; I am desperate.”

[3:10]  ³ tn Heb “And even in all this.”

[3:10]  ⁴ tn Heb “ has not turned back to me with all her heart but only in falsehood.”

[4:1]  ⁵ tn Or “If you, Israel, want to turn [away from your shameful ways (those described in 3:23-25)]…then you must turn back to me.” Or perhaps, “Israel, you must turn back…Yes, you must turn back to me.”

[4:1]  ⁶ tn Heb “disgusting things.”

[4:1]  ⁷ tn Or possibly, “If you get those disgusting idols out of my sight, you will not need to flee.” This is less probable because the normal meaning of the last verb is “to wander,” “ to stray.”

[7:22]  ⁸ tn Heb “For” but this introduces a long explanation about the relative importance of sacrifice and obedience.

[17:21]  ⁹ tn Heb “Be careful at the risk of your lives.” The expression with the preposition בְּ (bet) is unique. Elsewhere the verb “be careful” is used with the preposition לְ (lamed) in the sense of the reflexive. Hence the word “soul” cannot be simply reflexive here. BDB 1037 s.v. שָׁמַר Niph.1 understands this as a case where the preposition בְּ introduces the cost or price (cf. BDB 90 s.v. בּ III.3.a).

[17:21]  ¹⁰ sn Comparison with Neh 13:15-18 suggests that these loads were merchandise or agricultural produce which were being brought in for sale. The loads that were carried out of the houses in the next verse were probably goods for barter.

[17:21]  ¹¹ tn Heb “carry loads on the Sabbath and bring [them] in through.” The two verbs “carry” and “bring in” are an example of hendiadys (see the note on “Be careful…by carrying”). This is supported by the next line where only “carry out” of the houses is mentioned.

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

[18:12]  ¹³ tn Heb “We will follow our own plans and do each one according to the stubbornness of his own wicked heart.”

[18:12]  sn This has been the consistent pattern of their behavior. See 7:24; 9:13; 13:10; 16:12.

[22:25]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “the Chaldeans.” See the study note on 21:4.

[27:12]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “I spoke to Zedekiah…according to all these words, saying.”

[27:12]  ¹⁶ sn The verbs in this verse are all plural. They are addressed to Zedekiah and his royal advisers (compare 22:2).

[27:12]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “put their necks in the yoke of.” See the study note on v. 2 for the figure.

[34:20]  ¹⁸ sn See this same phrase in Jer 7:33; 16:4; 19:7.

[34:21]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “And Zedekiah king of Judah and his officials I will give into the hand of their enemies and into the hand of those who seek their lives and into the hands of the army of the king of Babylon which has gone up from against them.” The last two “and into the hand” phrases are each giving further explication of “their enemies” (the conjunction is explicative [cf. BDB 252 s.v. וְ 1.b]). The sentence has been broken down into shorter English sentences in conformity with contemporary English style.

[34:21]  sn This refers to the relief offered by the withdrawal of the Babylonian troops to fight against the Egyptians which were coming to Zedekiah’s aid (cf. 37:5, 7, 11).

[38:14]  ²⁰ tn The words “Some time later” are not in the text but are a way of translating the conjunction “And” or “Then” that introduces this narrative.

[38:14]  ²¹ sn The precise location of this entrance is unknown since it is mentioned nowhere else in the OT. Many commentators equate this with the “king’s outer entry” (mentioned in 2 Kgs 16:18) which appears to have been a private entryway between the temple and the palace.

[38:14]  ²² tn The words “when you answer” are not in the text but are implicit in the connection. They are supplied in the translation for the sake of clarity and smoothness of style.

[49:9]  ²³ tn The translation of this verse is generally based on the parallels in Obad 5. There the second line has a ה interrogative in front of it. The question can still be assumed because questions can be asked in Hebrew without a formal marker (cf. GKC 473 §150.a and BDB 519 s.v. לֹא 1.a[e] and compare usage in 2 Kgs 5:26).

[49:9]  ²⁴ tn The tense and nuance of the verb translated “pillage” are both different than the verb in Obad 5. There the verb is the imperfect of גָּנַב (ganav, “to steal”). Here the verb is the perfect of a verb which means to “ruin” or “spoil.” The English versions and commentaries, however, almost all render the verb here in much the same way as in Obad 5. The nuance must mean they only “ruin, destroy” (by stealing) only as much as they need (Heb “their sufficiency”), and the verb is used as metonymical substitute, effect for cause. The perfect must be some kind of a future perfect; “would they not have destroyed only…” The negative question is carried over by ellipsis from the preceding lines.

[51:9]  ²⁵ tn The words “Foreigners living there will say” are not in the text but are implicit from the third line. These words are generally assumed by the commentaries and are explicitly added in TEV and NCV which are attempting to clarify the text for the average reader.

[51:9]  ²⁶ tn Heb “Leave/abandon her.” However, it is smoother in the English translation to make this verb equivalent to the cohortative that follows.

[51:9]  ²⁷ tn This is an admittedly very paraphrastic translation that tries to make the figurative nuance of the Hebrew original understandable for the average reader. The Hebrew text reads: “For her judgment [or punishment (cf. BDB 1078 s.v. מִשְׁפָּט 1.f) = ‘execution of judgment’] touches the heavens, and is lifted up as far as the clouds.” The figure of hyperbole or exaggeration is being used here to indicate the vastness of Babylon’s punishment which is the reason to escape (vv. 6, 9c). For this figure see Deut 1:28 in comparison with Num 13:28 and see also Deut 9:1. In both of the passages in Deut it refers to an exaggeration about the height of the walls of fortified cities. The figure also may be a play on Gen 11:4 where the nations gather in Babylon to build a tower that reaches to the skies. The present translation has interpreted the perfects here as prophetic because it has not happened yet or they would not be encouraging one another to leave and escape. For the idea here compare 50:16.