Discovery BoxJeremiah 4:1 
Context4:1 “If you, Israel, want to come back,” says the Lord,
“if you want to come back to me 1
you must get those disgusting idols 2 out of my sight
and must no longer go astray. 3
Jeremiah 27:13
Context27:13 There is no reason why you and your people should die in war 4 or from starvation or disease! 5 That’s what the Lord says will happen to any nation 6 that will not be subject to the king of Babylon.
Jeremiah 51:24
Context51:24 “But I will repay Babylon
and all who live in Babylonia
for all the wicked things they did in Zion
right before the eyes of you Judeans,” 7
says the Lord. 8
Jeremiah 51:50
Context51:50 You who have escaped the sword, 9
go, do not delay. 10
Remember the Lord in a faraway land.
Think about Jerusalem. 11
1 tn Or “If you, Israel, want to turn [away from your shameful ways (those described in 3:23-25)]…then you must turn back to me.” Or perhaps, “Israel, you must turn back…Yes, you must turn back to me.”
2 tn Heb “disgusting things.”
3 tn Or possibly, “If you get those disgusting idols out of my sight, you will not need to flee.” This is less probable because the normal meaning of the last verb is “to wander,” “ to stray.”
4 tn Heb “with/by the sword.”
5 tn Heb “Why should you and your people die…?” The rhetorical question expects the answer made explicit in the translation, “There is no reason!”
6 tn Heb “…disease according to what the
7 tn Or “Media, you are my war club…I will use you to smash…leaders. So before your very eyes I will repay…for all the wicked things they did in Zion.” For explanation see the translator’s note on v. 20. The position of the phrase “before your eyes” at the end of the verse after “which they did in Zion” and the change in person from second masculine singular in vv. 20b-23 (“I used you to smite”) to second masculine plural in “before your eyes” argue that a change in referent/addressee occurs in this verse. To maintain that the referent in vv. 20-23 is Media/Cyrus requires that this position and change in person be ignored; “before your eyes” then is attached to “I will repay.” The present translation follows J. A. Thompson (Jeremiah [NICOT], 757) and F. B. Huey (Jeremiah, Lamentations [NAC], 423) in seeing the referent as the Judeans who had witnessed the destruction of Zion/Jerusalem. The word “Judean” has been supplied for the sake of identifying the referent for the modern reader.
8 tn Heb “Oracle of the
9 sn God’s exiled people are told to leave doomed Babylon (see v. 45).
10 tn Heb “don’t stand.”
11 tn Heb “let Jerusalem go up upon your heart.” The “heart” is often viewed as the seat of one’s mental faculties and thought life.
map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.
