¹ tn Heb “How good you have made your ways to seek love.”

² tn Heb “so that even the wicked women you teach your ways.”

³ tn Heb “Have you not just now called out to me, ‘[you are] my father!’?” The rhetorical question expects a positive answer.

⁴ tn The word “No” is not in the text but is carried over from the connection with the preceding line “not for…”

⁵ tn Heb “will speak judgments against them.”

⁶ tn Or “But your predecessors…”; Heb “But they….” There is a confusing interchange in the pronouns in vv. 25-26 which has led to some leveling in the ancient versions and the modern English versions. What is involved here are four levels of referents, the “you” of the present generation (vv. 21-22a), the ancestors who were delivered from Egypt (i.e., the “they” of vv. 22b-24), the “you” of v. 25 which involves all the Israelites from the Exodus to the time of speaking, and the “they” of v. 26 which cannot be the ancestors of vv. 22-24 (since they cannot be more wicked than themselves) but must be an indefinite entity which is a part of the “you” of v. 25, i.e., the more immediate ancestors of the present generation. If this is kept in mind, there is no need to level the pronouns to “they” and “them” or to “you” and “your” as some of the ancient versions and modern English versions have done.

⁷ tn Heb “hardened [or made stiff] their neck.”

⁸ sn For the argumentation here compare Jer 7:23-26.

⁹ tn The particle כִּי (ki) which begins this verse is parallel to the one at the beginning of the preceding verse. However, the connection is too distant to render it “for.” “Moreover” is intended to draw the parallel. The words “the Lord says” (Heb “Oracle of the Lord”) have been drawn up to the front to introduce the shift in speaker from Jeremiah, who describes his agitated state, to God, who describes the sins of the prophets and priests and his consequent judgment on them.

¹⁰ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”