Jeremiah 35:15

35:15 I sent all my servants the prophets to warn you over and over again. They said, “Every one of you, stop doing the evil things you have been doing and do what is right. 1  Do not pay allegiance to other gods 2  and worship them. Then you can continue to live in this land that I gave to you and your ancestors.” But you did not pay any attention or listen to me.

Jeremiah 44:17

44:17 Instead we will do everything we vowed we would do. 3  We will sacrifice and pour out drink offerings to the goddess called the Queen of Heaven 4  just as we and our ancestors, our kings, and our leaders previously did in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem. For then we had plenty of food, were well-off, and had no troubles. 5 

Jeremiah 49:2

49:2 Because you did that,

I, the Lord, affirm that 6  a time is coming

when I will make Rabbah, the capital city of Ammon,

hear the sound of the battle cry.

It will become a mound covered with ruins. 7 

Its villages will be burned to the ground. 8 

Then Israel will take back its land

from those who took their land from them.

I, the Lord, affirm it! 9 

1 tn Heb “Turn, each of you, from his [= your] wicked way and make good your deeds.” Compare 18:11 where the same idiom occurs with the added term of “make good your ways.”

2 tn Heb “Don’t go after/follow other gods.” See the translator’s note on 2:5 for an explanation of the idiom and see 11:10; 13:10; 25:6 for the same idiom.

3 tn Heb “that went out of our mouth.” I.e., everything we said, promised, or vowed.

4 tn Heb “sacrifice to the Queen of Heaven and pour out drink offerings to her.” The expressions have been combined to simplify and shorten the sentence. The same combination also occurs in vv. 18, 19.

sn See the translator’s note and the study note on 7:18 for the problem of translation and identification of the term translated here “the goddess called the Queen of Heaven.”

5 tn Heb “saw [or experienced] no disaster/trouble/harm.”

6 tn Heb “oracle of the Lord.”

7 tn Heb “a desolate tel.” For the explanation of what a “tel” is see the study note on 30:18.

8 tn Heb “Its daughters will be burned with fire.” For the use of the word “daughters” to refer to the villages surrounding a larger city see BDB 123 s.v. I בַּת 4 and compare the usage in Judg 1:27.

9 tn Heb “says the Lord.” The first person is used to maintain the first person address throughout.