Discovery BoxJeremiah 5:3-4 
Context5:3 Lord, I know you look for faithfulness. 1
But even when you punish these people, they feel no remorse. 2
Even when you nearly destroy them, they refuse to be corrected.
They have become as hardheaded as a rock. 3
They refuse to change their ways. 4
5:4 I thought, “Surely it is only the ignorant poor who act this way. 5
They act like fools because they do not know what the Lord demands. 6
They do not know what their God requires of them. 7
Jeremiah 5:21
Context5:21 Tell them: ‘Hear this,
you foolish people who have no understanding,
who have eyes but do not discern,
who have ears but do not perceive: 8
1 tn Heb “O
2 tn Commentaries and lexicons debate the meaning of the verb here. The MT is pointed as though from a verb meaning “to writhe in anguish or contrition” (חוּל [khul]; see, e.g., BDB 297 s.v. חוּל 2.c), but some commentaries and lexicons repoint the text as though from a verb meaning “to be sick,” thus “to feel pain” (חָלָה [khalah]; see, e.g., HALOT 304 s.v. חָלָה 3). The former appears more appropriate to the context.
3 tn Heb “They made their faces as hard as a rock.”
4 tn Or “to repent”; Heb “to turn back.”
5 tn Heb “Surely they are poor.” The translation is intended to make clear the explicit contrasts and qualifications drawn in this verse and the next.
6 tn Heb “the way of the
7 tn Heb “the judgment [or ordinance] of their God.”
8 tn Heb “they have eyes but they do not see, they have ears but they do not hear.”
