Jeremiah 14:13

14:13 Then I said, “Oh, Lord God, 1  look! 2  The prophets are telling them that you said, 3  ‘You will not experience war or suffer famine. 4  I will give you lasting peace and prosperity in this land.’” 5 

Jeremiah 14:15

14:15 I did not send those prophets, though they claim to be prophesying in my name. They may be saying, ‘No war or famine will happen in this land.’ But I, the Lord, say this about 6  them: ‘War and starvation will kill those prophets.’ 7 

1 tn Heb “Lord Yahweh.” The translation follows the ancient Jewish tradition of substituting the Hebrew word for God for the proper name Yahweh.

2 tn Heb “Behold.” See the translator’s note on usage of this particle in 1:6.

3 tn The words “that you said” are not in the text but are implicit from the first person in the affirmation that follows. They are supplied in the translation for clarity.

4 tn Heb “You will not see sword and you will not have starvation [or hunger].”

5 tn Heb “I will give you unfailing peace in this place.” The translation opts for “peace and prosperity” here for the word שָׁלוֹם (shalom) because in the context it refers both to peace from war and security from famine and plague. The word translated “lasting” (אֱמֶת, ’emet) is a difficult to render here because it has broad uses: “truth, reliability, stability, steadfastness,” etc. “Guaranteed” or “lasting” seem to fit the context the best.

6 tn Heb “Thus says the Lord about.” The first person construction has been used in the translation for better English style.

7 tn Heb “Thus says the Lord concerning the prophets who are prophesying in my name and I did not send them [= whom I did not send] and they are saying [= who are saying], ‘Sword and famine…’, by sword and famine those prophets will be killed.” This sentence has been restructured to conform to contemporary English style.

sn The rhetoric of the passage is again sustained by an emphatic word order which contrasts what they say will not happen to the land, “war and famine,” with the punishment that the Lord will inflict on them, i.e., “war and starvation [or famine].”