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25 Do not go out into the countryside.
Do not travel on the roads.
For the enemy is there with sword in hand.[a]
They are spreading terror everywhere.”[b]
26 So I said,[c] “Oh, my dear people,[d] put on sackcloth
and roll in ashes.
Mourn with painful sobs
as though you had lost your only child.
For any moment now[e] that destructive army[f]
will come against us.”

27 The Lord said to me,[g]

“I have made you like a metal assayer
to test my people like ore.[h]
You are to observe them
and evaluate how they behave.”[i]

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Footnotes

  1. Jeremiah 6:25 tn Heb “For the enemy has a sword.”
  2. Jeremiah 6:25 tn Heb “Terror is all around!”
  3. Jeremiah 6:26 tn These words are not in the text but are implicit from the context.
  4. Jeremiah 6:26 tn Heb “daughter of my people.” For the translation given here see 4:11 and the translator’s note there.
  5. Jeremiah 6:26 tn Heb “suddenly.”
  6. Jeremiah 6:26 tn Heb “the destroyer.”
  7. Jeremiah 6:27 tn These words are not in the text but are supplied in the translation for clarity. Note “I have made you.” Cf. Jer 1:18.
  8. Jeremiah 6:27 tn Heb “I have made you an assayer of my people, a tester [?].” The meaning of the words translated “assayer” (בָּחוֹן, bakhon) and “tester” (מִבְצָר, mivtsar) is uncertain. The word בָּחוֹן (bakhon) can mean “tower” (cf. BDB 103 s.v. בָּחוֹן; cf. Isa 23:13 for the only other use) or “assayer” (cf. BDB 103 s.v. בָּחוֹן). The latter would be the more expected nuance because of the other uses of nouns and verbs from this root. The word מִבְצָר (mivtsar) normally means “fortress” (cf. BDB 131 s.v. מִבְצָר), but most modern commentaries and lexicons deem that nuance inappropriate here. HALOT follows a proposal that the word is to be repointed to מְבַצֵּר (mevatser) and derived from a root בָּצַר (batsar) meaning “to test” (cf. HALOT 143 s.v. IV בָּצַר). That proposal makes the most sense in the context, but the root appears nowhere else in the OT.
  9. Jeremiah 6:27 tn Heb “test their way.”