Discovery BoxJeremiah 5:5 
Context5:5 I will go to the leaders 1
and speak with them.
Surely they know what the Lord demands. 2
Surely they know what their God requires of them.” 3
Yet all of them, too, have rejected his authority
and refuse to submit to him. 4
Jeremiah 11:8
Context11:8 But they did not listen to me or pay any attention to me! Each one of them followed the stubborn inclinations of his own wicked heart. So I brought on them all the punishments threatened in the covenant because they did not carry out its terms as I commanded them to do.’” 5
Jeremiah 11:14
Context11:14 So, Jeremiah, 6 do not pray for these people. Do not cry out to me or petition me on their behalf. Do not plead with me to save them. 7 For I will not listen to them when they call out to me for help when disaster strikes them.” 8
Jeremiah 14:14
Context14:14 Then the Lord said to me, “Those prophets are prophesying lies while claiming my authority! 9 I did not send them. I did not commission them. 10 I did not speak to them. They are prophesying to these people false visions, worthless predictions, 11 and the delusions of their own mind.
Jeremiah 16:15
Context16:15 But in that time they will affirm them with ‘I swear as surely as the Lord lives who delivered the people of Israel from the land of the north and from all the other lands where he had banished them.’ At that time I will bring them back to the land I gave their ancestors.” 12
Jeremiah 18:23
Context18:23 But you, Lord, know
all their plots to kill me.
Do not pardon their crimes!
Do not ignore their sins as though you had erased them! 13
Let them be brought down in defeat before you!
Deal with them while you are still angry! 14
Jeremiah 23:32
Context23:32 I, the Lord, affirm 15 that I am opposed to those prophets who dream up lies and report them. They are misleading my people with their reckless lies. 16 I did not send them. I did not commission them. They are not helping these people at all. 17 I, the Lord, affirm it!” 18
Jeremiah 27:22
Context27:22 He has said, ‘They will be carried off to Babylon. They will remain there until it is time for me to show consideration for them again. 19 Then I will bring them back and restore them to this place.’ I, the Lord, affirm this!” 20
Jeremiah 29:19
Context29:19 For they have not paid attention to what I said to them through my servants the prophets whom I sent to them over and over again,’ 21 says the Lord. 22 ‘And you exiles 23 have not paid any attention to them either,’ says the Lord. 24
Jeremiah 31:8
Context31:8 Then I will reply, 25 ‘I will bring them back from the land of the north.
I will gather them in from the distant parts of the earth.
Blind and lame people will come with them,
so will pregnant women and women about to give birth.
A vast throng of people will come back here.
Jeremiah 32:23
Context32:23 But when they came in and took possession of it, they did not obey you or live as you had instructed them. They did not do anything that you commanded them to do. 26 So you brought all this disaster on them.
Jeremiah 35:17
Context35:17 So I, the Lord, the God who rules over all, the God of Israel, say: 27 “I will soon bring on Judah and all the citizens of Jerusalem all the disaster that I threatened to bring on them. I will do this because I spoke to them but they did not listen. I called out to them but they did not answer.”’”
1 tn Or “people in power”; Heb “the great ones.”
2 tn Heb “the way of the
3 tn Heb “the judgment [or ordinance] of their God.”
4 tn Heb “have broken the yoke and torn off the yoke ropes.” Compare Jer 2:20 and the note there.
5 tn Heb “So I brought on them all the terms of this covenant which I commanded to do and they did not do.” There is an interesting polarity that is being exploited by two different nuances implicit in the use of the word “terms” (דִּבְרֵי [divre], literally “words”), i.e., what the
6 tn Heb “you.”
7 tn The words “to save them” are not in the text but are implicit from the context. They are supplied in the translation for clarity.
sn Cf. Jer 7:16 where this same command is addressed to Jeremiah.
8 tc The rendering “when disaster strikes them” is based on reading “at the time of” (בְּעֵת, bÿ’et) with a number of Hebrew
9 tn Heb “Falsehood those prophets are prophesying in my name.” In the OT, the “name” reflected the person’s character (cf. Gen 27:36; 1 Sam 25:25) or his reputation (Gen 11:4; 2 Sam 8:13). To speak in someone’s name was to act as his representative or carry his authority (1 Sam 25:9; 1 Kgs 21:8).
10 tn Heb “I did not command them.” Compare 1 Chr 22:12 for usage.
11 tn Heb “divination and worthlessness.” The noun “worthlessness” stands as a qualifying “of” phrase (= to an adjective; an attributive genitive in Hebrew) after a noun in Zech 11:17; Job 13:4. This is an example of hendiadys where two nouns are joined by “and” with one serving as the qualifier of the other.
sn The word translated “predictions” here is really the word “divination.” Divination was prohibited in Israel (cf. Deut 18:10, 14). The practice of divination involved various mechanical means to try to predict the future. The word was used here for its negative connotations in a statement that is rhetorically structured to emphasize the falseness of the promises of the false prophets. It would be unnatural to contemporary English style to try to capture this emphasis in English. In the Hebrew text the last sentence reads: “False vision, divination, and worthlessness and the deceitfulness of their heart they are prophesying to them.” For the emphasis in the preceding sentence see the note there.
12 tn These two verses which constitute one long sentence with compound, complex subordinations has been broken up for sake of English style. It reads, “Therefore, behold the days are coming, says the
13 sn Heb “Do not blot out their sins from before you.” For this anthropomorphic figure which looks at God’s actions as though connected with record books, i.e., a book of wrongdoings to be punished, and a book of life for those who are to live, see e.g., Exod 32:32, 33, Ps 51:1 (51:3 HT); 69:28 (69:29 HT).
14 tn Heb “in the time of your anger.”
15 tn Heb “Oracle of the
16 tn Heb “with their lies and their recklessness.” This is an example of hendiadys where two nouns (in this case a concrete and an abstract one) are joined by “and” but one is intended to be the adjectival modifier of the other.
17 sn In the light of what has been said this is a rhetorical understatement; they are not only “not helping,” they are leading them to their doom (cf. vv. 19-22). This figure of speech is known as litotes.
18 tn Heb “Oracle of the
19 tn This verb is a little difficult to render here. The word is used in the sense of taking note of something and acting according to what is noticed. It is the word that has been translated several times throughout Jeremiah as “punish [someone].” It is also used in the opposite of sense of taking note and “show consideration for” (or “care for;” see, e.g., Ruth 1:6). Here the nuance is positive and is further clarified by the actions that follow, bringing them back and restoring them.
20 tn Heb “oracle of the
21 tn See the translator’s note on 7:13 for an explanation of this idiom.
22 tn Heb “Oracle of the
23 tn The word “exiles” is not in the text. It is supplied in the translation to clarify the referent of “you.”
24 tn Heb “Oracle of the
25 tn The words “And I will reply” are not in the text but the words vv. 8-9 appear to be the answer to the petition at the end of v. 7. These words are supplied in the translation for clarity.
26 tn Or “They did not do everything that you commanded them to do.” This is probably a case where the negative (לֹא, lo’) negates the whole category indicated by “all” (כָּל, kol; see BDB 482 s.v. כָּל 1.e(c) and compare usage in Deut 12:16; 28:14). Jeremiah has repeatedly emphasized that the history of Israel since their entry into the land has been one of persistent disobedience and rebellion (cf., e.g. 7:22-26; 11:7-8). The statement, of course, is somewhat hyperbolical as all categorical statements of this kind are.
27 tn Heb “Therefore, thus says the
