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 9:8

9:8 Their tongues are like deadly arrows. ³ 

They are always telling lies. ⁴ 

Friendly words for their neighbors come from their mouths.

But their minds are thinking up ways to trap them. ⁵ 

[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.”

[9:8]  ³ tc This reading follows the Masoretic consonants (the Kethib, a Qal active participle from שָׁחַט, shakhat). The Masoretes preferred to read “a sharpened arrow” (the Qere, a Qal passive participle from the same root or a homonym, meaning “hammered, beaten”). See HALOT 1354 s.v. II שָׁחַט for discussion. The exact meaning of the word makes little difference to the meaning of the metaphor itself.

[9:8]  ⁴ tn Heb “They speak deceit.”

[9:8]  ⁵ tn Heb “With his mouth a person speaks peace to his neighbor, but in his heart he sets an ambush for him.”