Jeremiah 18:18

Jeremiah Petitions the Lord to Punish Those Who Attack Him

18:18 Then some people said, “Come on! Let us consider how to deal with Jeremiah! There will still be priests to instruct us, wise men to give us advice, and prophets to declare God’s word. Come on! Let’s bring charges against him and get rid of him! Then we will not need to pay attention to anything he says.”

Jeremiah 25:31

25:31 The sounds of battle will resound to the ends of the earth.

For the Lord will bring charges against the nations.

He will pass judgment on all humankind

and will hand the wicked over to be killed in war.’

The Lord so affirms it!

Jeremiah 26:11

26:11 Then the priests and the prophets made their charges before the officials and all the people. They said, “This man should be condemned to die 10  because he prophesied against this city. You have heard him do so 11  with your own ears.”


tn Heb “They.” The referent is unidentified; “some people” has been used in the translation.

tn Heb “Let us make plans against Jeremiah.” See 18:18 where this has sinister overtones as it does here.

tn Heb “Instruction will not perish from priest, counsel from the wise, word from the prophet.”

sn These are the three channels through whom God spoke to his people in the OT. See Jer 8:8-10 and Ezek 7:26.

tn Heb “Let us smite him with our tongues.” It is clear from the context that this involved plots to kill him.

tn For the use of this word see Amos 2:2; Hos 10:14; Ps 74:23. See also the usage in Isa 66:6 which is very similar to the metaphorical usage here.

tn Heb “the Lord has a lawsuit against the nations.” For usage of the term see Hos 4:1; Mic 6:2, and compare the usage of the related verb in Jer 2:9; 12:1.

tn Heb “give the wicked over to the sword.”

sn There is undoubtedly a deliberate allusion here to the reference to the “wars” (Heb “sword”) that the Lord had said he would send raging through the nations (vv. 16, 27) and the “war” (Heb “sword”) that he is proclaiming against them (v. 29).

tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

tn Heb “the priests and prophets said to the leaders and the people….” The long sentence has been broken up to conform better with contemporary English style and the situational context is reflected in “laid their charges.”

10 tn Heb “a sentence of death to this man.”

11 tn Heb “it.”