Discovery BoxJeremiah 18:23 
Context18:23 But you, Lord, know
all their plots to kill me.
Do not pardon their crimes!
Do not ignore their sins as though you had erased them! 1
Let them be brought down in defeat before you!
Deal with them while you are still angry! 2
Jeremiah 20:4
Context20:4 For the Lord says, ‘I will make both you and your friends terrified of what will happen to you. 3 You will see all of them die by the swords of their enemies. 4 I will hand all the people of Judah over to the king of Babylon. He will carry some of them away into exile in Babylon and he will kill others of them with the sword.
Jeremiah 38:17
Context38:17 Then Jeremiah said to Zedekiah, “The Lord, the God who rules over all, the God of Israel, 5 says, ‘You must surrender to the officers of the king of Babylon. If you do, your life will be spared 6 and this city will not be burned down. Indeed, you and your whole family will be spared.
Jeremiah 42:2
Context42:2 They said to him, “Please grant our request 7 and pray to the Lord your God for all those of us who are still left alive here. 8 For, as you yourself can see, there are only a few of us left out of the many there were before. 9
1 sn Heb “Do not blot out their sins from before you.” For this anthropomorphic figure which looks at God’s actions as though connected with record books, i.e., a book of wrongdoings to be punished, and a book of life for those who are to live, see e.g., Exod 32:32, 33, Ps 51:1 (51:3 HT); 69:28 (69:29 HT).
2 tn Heb “in the time of your anger.”
3 tn Heb “I will make you an object of terror to both you and your friends.”
4 tn Heb “And they will fall by the sword of their enemies and [with] your eyes seeing [it].”
5 tn Heb “Yahweh, the God of armies, the God of Israel.” Compare 7:3 and 35:17 and see the study note on 2:19.
6 tn Heb “Your life/soul will live.” The quote is a long condition-consequence sentence with compound consequential clauses. It reads, “If you will only go out to the officers of the king of Babylon, your soul [= you yourself; BDB 660 s.v. נֶפֶשׁ 4.a] will live and this city will not be burned with fire and you and your household will live.” The sentence has been broken down and restructured to better conform with contemporary English style. The infinitive absolute in the condition emphasizes the one condition, i.e., going out or surrendering (cf. Joüon 2:423 §123.g, and compare usage in Exod 15:26). For the idiom “go out to” = “surrender to” see the full idiom in 21:9 “go out and fall over to” which is condensed in 38:2 to “go out to.” The expression here is the same as in 38:2.
7 tn Heb “please let our petition fall before you.” For the idiom here see 37:20 and the translator’s note there.
8 tn Heb “on behalf of us, [that is] on behalf of all this remnant.”
sn This refers to the small remnant of people who were left of those from Mizpah who had been taken captive by Ishmael after he had killed Gedaliah and who had been rescued from him at Gibeon. There were other Judeans still left in the land of Judah who had not been killed or deported by the Babylonians.
9 tn Heb “For we are left a few from the many as your eyes are seeing us.” The words “used to be” are not in the text but are implicit. These words are supplied in the translation for clarity and smoothness of English style.
