Discovery BoxJeremiah 5:3-5 
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
5:5 I will go to the leaders 8
and speak with them.
Surely they know what the Lord demands. 9
Surely they know what their God requires of them.” 10
Yet all of them, too, have rejected his authority
and refuse to submit to him. 11
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 Or “people in power”; Heb “the great ones.”
9 tn Heb “the way of the
10 tn Heb “the judgment [or ordinance] of their God.”
11 tn Heb “have broken the yoke and torn off the yoke ropes.” Compare Jer 2:20 and the note there.
