Discovery BoxJeremiah 5:22 
Context5:22 “You should fear me!” says the Lord.
“You should tremble in awe before me! 1
I made the sand to be a boundary for the sea,
a permanent barrier that it can never cross.
Its waves may roll, but they can never prevail.
They may roar, but they can never cross beyond that boundary.” 2
Jeremiah 19:5
Context19:5 They have built places here 3 for worship of the god Baal so that they could sacrifice their children as burnt offerings to him in the fire. Such sacrifices 4 are something I never commanded them to make! They are something I never told them to do! Indeed, such a thing never even entered my mind!
1 tn Heb “Should you not fear me? Should you not tremble in awe before me?” The rhetorical questions expect the answer explicit in the translation.
2 tn Heb “it.” The referent is made explicit to avoid any possible confusion.
3 tn The word “here” is not in the text. However, it is implicit from the rest of the context. It is supplied in the translation for clarity.
4 tn The words “such sacrifices” are not in the text. The text merely says “to burn their children in the fire as burnt offerings to Baal which I did not command.” The command obviously refers not to the qualification “to Baal” but to burning the children in the fire as burnt offerings. The words are supplied in the translation to avoid a possible confusion that the reference is to sacrifices to Baal. Likewise the words should not be translated so literally that they leave the impression that God never said anything about sacrificing their children to other gods. The fact is he did. See Lev 18:21; Deut 12:30; 18:10.
