Yesaya 57:9

57:9 You take olive oil as tribute ¹  to your king, ² 

along with many perfumes. ³ 

You send your messengers to a distant place;

you go all the way to Sheol. ⁴ 

Yesaya 65:3

65:3 These people continually and blatantly offend me ⁵ 

as they sacrifice in their sacred orchards ⁶ 

and burn incense on brick altars. ⁷ 

Yeremia 44:5

44:5 But the people of Jerusalem and Judah ⁸  would not listen or pay any attention. They would not stop the wickedness they were doing nor quit sacrificing to other gods. ⁹ 

[57:9]  ¹ tn Heb “you journey with oil.”

[57:9]  ² tn Heb “the king.” Since the context refers to idolatry and child sacrifice (see v. 5), some emend מֶלֶך (melekh, “king”) to “Molech.” Perhaps Israel’s devotion to her idols is likened here to a subject taking tribute to a ruler.

[57:9]  ³ tn Heb “and you multiply your perfumes.”

[57:9]  ⁴ sn Israel’s devotion to her idols is inordinate, irrational, and self-destructive.

[65:3]  ⁵ tn Heb “the people who provoke me to anger to my face continually.”

[65:3]  ⁶ tn Or “gardens” (KJV, NASB, NIV, NRSV, NLT).

[65:3]  ⁷ tn Or perhaps, “on tiles.”

[44:5]  ⁸ tn There appears to be a deliberate shift in the pronouns used in vv. 2-5. “You” refers to the people living in Egypt who are being addressed (v. 2) and to the people of present and past generations to whom the Lord persistently sent the prophets (v. 4). “They” refers to the people of Jerusalem and the towns of Judah who have suffered disaster (v. 2) because of the wickedness of sacrificing to other gods (vv. 3, 5). The referents have been explicitly identified in the translation for the sake of clarity.

[44:5]  ⁹ tn Heb “They did not listen or incline their ear [= pay attention] by turning from their wickedness by not sacrificing to other gods.” The לְ (lamed) + the negative + the infinitive is again epexegetical. The sentence has been restructured and more idiomatic English expressions have been used to better conform with contemporary English style but an attempt has been made to retain the basic relationships of subordination.