¹ tn Heb “For thus said the Lord concerning Shallum son of Josiah, king of Judah, who reigned instead of his father, who went away from this place: He will not return there again.”

¹ tn The words “Then I said” are not in the text. They are supplied in the translation for clarity to show that Jeremiah turns from describing the peoples’ plots to imploring God to deal with the plotters.

¹ tn The words “Then I said” are not in the text. They are supplied in the translation to show the shift from God, who has been speaking to Jeremiah, to Jeremiah, who here addresses God.

¹ tn The words “I said” are not in the text. They are supplied in the translation for clarity to mark the shift from the Lord speaking to Jerusalem, to Jeremiah speaking to God.

³ tn The words “that you said” are not in the text but are implicit from the first person in the affirmation that follows. They are supplied in the translation for clarity.

¹ tn The words “Then I said” are not in the text. They are supplied in the translation to show the shift in speaker from vv. 18-19, where the Lord is speaking to Jeremiah.

¹ tn The words “So I said” are not in the text but are implicit from the context. They are supplied in the translation for clarity to show the shift in address.

⁴ tn In place of the words “I said at that time,” the Hebrew text has “saying.” The sentence is again being restructured in English to avoid the long, confusing style of the Hebrew original.

¹ tn The words “And I said, ‘Indeed’” are not in the text. They have been supplied in the translation to try and help clarify who the speaker is who identifies with the lament of the people.

¹ tn The words “the Lord said” are not in the text, but it is obvious from the content that he is the speaker. These words are supplied in the translation for clarity.

¹ tn The words “Then I said” are not in the text but are supplied in the translation for clarity. There is a general consensus that the words of vv. 18-19a are Jeremiah’s self-expression.

¹ tn The words “the Lord said to me” are not in the text but are implicit from the context. They are supplied in the translation to make clear who is speaking and who is being addressed.

¹ tn The words “I said” are not in the text. They are used to mark the shift from the Lord’s promise of judgment to Jeremiah’s lament concerning it.

¹ tn The words “The Lord said” are not in the text, but it is obvious from v. 6 and v. 9 that he is the speaker. These words are supplied in the translation for clarity.

⁴ sn The verse is talking about righteous kings, of course—they love righteousness and not flattery. In this proverb “righteous” and “upright” referring to what is said means “what is right and straight,” i.e., the truth (cf. NCV).

² tn Heb “lips of righteousness”; cf. NAB, NIV “honest lips.” The genitive “righteousness” functions as an attributive adjective. The term “lips” is a metonymy of cause for what is said: “righteous speech” or “righteous counsel.”

³ tn Heb “the mind of fools.” The לֵב (lev, “mind, heart”) is the place of thinking and so it is the both source of what is said and the place of discernment for what to say aloud.

³ tn Heb “and a mouth of perverse things.” The word “mouth” is a metonymy of cause for what is said; and the noun תַהְפֻּכוֹת (tahpukhot, “perverse things”) means destructive things (the related verb is used for the overthrowing of Sodom).

¹ tn The phrase could be rendered with an understood ellipsis: “all the words of my mouth [are said] in righteousness”; or the preposition could be interpreted as a beth essentiae: “all the words of my mouth are righteousness.”

³ tn Heb “walks around with a perverse mouth.” The term “mouth” is a metonymy of cause, an organ of speech put for what is said. This is an individual who says perverted or twisted things.