Jeremiah 2:11

2:11 Has a nation ever changed its gods

(even though they are not really gods at all)?

But my people have exchanged me, their glorious God,

for a god that cannot help them at all!

Jeremiah 2:25

2:25 Do not chase after other gods until your shoes wear out

and your throats become dry.

But you say, ‘It is useless for you to try and stop me

because I love those foreign gods and want to pursue them!’

Jeremiah 2:28

2:28 But where are the gods you made for yourselves?

Let them save you when you are in trouble.

The sad fact is that you have as many gods

as you have towns, Judah.


tn Heb “have exchanged their glory [i.e., the God in whom they glory].” This is a case of a figure of speech where the attribute of a person or thing is put for the person or thing. Compare the common phrase in Isaiah, the Holy One of Israel, obviously referring to the Lord, the God of Israel.

tn Heb “what cannot profit.” The verb is singular and the allusion is likely to Baal. See the translator’s note on 2:8 for the likely pun or wordplay.

tn Heb “Refrain your feet from being bare and your throat from being dry/thirsty.”

tn Heb “It is useless! No!” For this idiom, see Jer 18:12; NEB “No; I am desperate.”

tn This is an attempt to render the Hebrew particle כִּי (ki, “for, indeed”) contextually.