¹ tn These two sentences have been recast in English to break up a long Hebrew sentence and incorporate the oracular formula “says the Lord (Heb ‘oracle of the Lord’)” which occurs after “Your fathers abandoned me.” In Hebrew the two sentences read: “When you tell them these things and they say, ‘…’, then tell them, ‘Because your ancestors abandoned me,’ oracle of the Lord.”

² tn Heb “fathers” (also in vv. 12, 13, 15, 19).

³ tn Heb “followed after.” See the translator’s note at 2:5 for the explanation of the idiom.

⁴ tn Heb “But me they have abandoned and my law they have not kept.” The objects are thrown forward to bring out the contrast which has rhetorical force. However, such a sentence in English would be highly unnatural.

⁵ tn The parallel account in 2 Kgs 25:8 has “seventh.”

⁶ sn The tenth day of the month would have been August 17, 586 b.c. in modern reckoning.

⁷ tn For the meaning of this phrase see BDB 371 s.v. טַבָּח 2 and compare the usage in Gen 39:1.

⁸ tn Heb “stood before.”