Yeremia 7:3

7:3 The Lord God of Israel who rules over all ¹  says: Change the way you have been living and do what is right. ²  If you do, I will allow you to continue to live in this land. ³ 

Yeremia 7:9

7:9 You steal. ⁴  You murder. You commit adultery. You lie when you swear on oath. You sacrifice to the god Baal. You pay allegiance to ⁵  other gods whom you have not previously known.

Yeremia 13:23

13:23 But there is little hope for you ever doing good,

you who are so accustomed to doing evil.

Can an Ethiopian ⁶  change the color of his skin?

Can a leopard remove its spots? ⁷ 

Yeremia 18:8

18:8 But if that nation I threatened stops doing wrong, ⁸  I will cancel the destruction ⁹  I intended to do to it.

[7:3]  ¹ tn Heb “Yahweh of armies, the God Israel.”

[7:3]  sn Compare the use of similar titles in 2:19; 5:14; 6:6 and see the explanation in the study note at 2:19. In this instance the title appears to emphasize the Lord as the heavenly King who drags his disobedient vassals into court (and threatens them with judgment).

[7:3]  ² tn Or “Make good your ways and your actions.” J. Bright’s translation (“Reform the whole pattern of your conduct”; Jeremiah [AB], 52) is excellent.

[7:3]  ³ tn Heb “place” but this might be misunderstood to refer to the temple.

[7:9]  ⁴ tn Heb “Will you steal…then say, ‘We are safe’?” Verses 9-10 are one long sentence in the Hebrew text.

[7:9]  ⁵ tn Heb “You go/follow after.” See the translator’s note at 2:5 for an explanation of the idiom involved here.

[13:23]  ⁶ tn This is a common proverb in English coming from this biblical passage. For cultures where it is not proverbial perhaps it would be better to translate “Can black people change the color of their skin?” Strictly speaking these are “Cushites” inhabitants of a region along the upper Nile south of Egypt. The Greek text is responsible for the identification with Ethiopia. The term in Greek is actually a epithet = “burnt face.”

[13:23]  ⁷ tn Heb “Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots? [Then] you also will be able to do good who are accustomed to do evil.” The English sentence has been restructured and rephrased in an attempt to produce some of the same rhetorical force the Hebrew original has in this context.

[18:8]  ⁸ tn Heb “turns from its wickedness.”

[18:8]  ⁹ tn There is a good deal of debate about how the word translated here “revoke” should be translated. There is a good deal of reluctance to translate it “change my mind” because some see that as contradicting Num 23:19 and thus prefer “relent.” However, the English word “relent” suggests the softening of an attitude but not necessarily the change of course. It is clear that in many cases (including here) an actual change of course is in view (see, e.g., Amos 7:3, 6; Jonah 3:9; Jer 26:19; Exod 13:17; 32:14). Several of these passages deal with “conditional” prophecies where a change in behavior of the people or the mediation of a prophet involves the change in course of the threatened punishment (or the promised benefit). “Revoke” or “forgo” may be the best way to render this in contemporary English idiom.

[18:8]  sn There is a wordplay here involving the word “evil” (רָעָה, ra’ah) which refers to both the crime and the punishment. This same play is carried further in Jonah 3:10-4:1 where Jonah becomes very displeased (Heb “it was very evil to Jonah with great evil”) when God forgoes bringing disaster (evil) on Nineveh because they have repented of their wickedness (evil).