Jeremiah 25:6-7

25:6 Do not pay allegiance to¹ other gods and worship and serve them. Do not make me angry by the things that you do.² Then I will not cause you any harm.’ 25:7 So, now the Lord says,³ ‘You have not listened to me. But⁴ you have made me angry by the things that you have done.⁵ Thus you have brought harm on yourselves.’

Jeremiah 29:11

29:11 For I know what I have planned for you,’ says the Lord.⁶ ‘I have plans to prosper you, not to harm you. I have plans to give you⁷ a future filled with hope.⁸

¹tn Heb “follow after.” See the translator’s note on 2:5 for this idiom.

²tn Heb “make me angry with the work of your hands.” The term “work of your own hands” is often interpreted as a reference to idolatry as is clearly the case in Isa 2:8; 37:19. However, the parallelism in 25:14 and the context in 32:30 show that it is more general and refers to what they have done. That is likely the meaning here as well.

³tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

⁴tn This is a rather clear case where the Hebrew particle לְמַעַן (lÿma’an) introduces a consequence and not a purpose, contrary to the dictum of BDB 775 s.v. מַעַן note 1. They have not listened to him in order to make him angry but with the result that they have made him angry by going their own way. Jeremiah appears to use this particle for result rather than purpose on several other occasions (see, e.g., 7:18, 19; 27:10, 15; 32:29).

⁵tn Heb “make me angry with the work of your hands.” The term “work of your own hands” is often interpreted as a reference to idolatry as is clearly the case in Isa 2:8; 37:19. However, the parallelism in 25:14 and the context in 32:30 show that it is more general and refers to what they have done. That is likely the meaning here as well.

⁶tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

⁷tn Heb “I know the plans that I am planning for you, oracle of the Lord, plans of well-being and not for harm to give to you….”

⁸tn Or “the future you hope for”; Heb “a future and a hope.” This is a good example of hendiadys where two formally coordinated nouns (adjectives, verbs) convey a single idea where one of the terms functions as a qualifier of the other. For this figure see E. W. Bullinger, Figures of Speech, 658-72. This example is discussed on p. 661.