Jeremiah 8:2-4
New English Translation
2 They will be spread out and exposed to the sun, the moon, and the stars.[a] These are things they[b] adored and served, things to which they paid allegiance,[c] from which they sought guidance and worshiped. The bones of these people[d] will never be regathered and reburied. They will be like manure used to fertilize the ground.[e] 3 However, I will leave some of these wicked people alive and banish them to other places. But wherever these people who survive may go, they will wish they had died rather than lived,”[f] says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies.[g]
Willful Disregard of God Will Lead to Destruction
4 The Lord said to me,[h]
“Tell them, ‘The Lord says,
Do people not get back up when they fall down?
Do they not turn around when they go the wrong way?[i]
Footnotes
- Jeremiah 8:2 tc MT, 4QJera and LXX read, “the sun and the moon and all the host of heaven,” but 4QJerc reads, “the sun and all the stars.”tn Heb “the host of heaven.”
- Jeremiah 8:2 tn Heb “the sun, moon, and host of heaven which they…”
- Jeremiah 8:2 tn Heb “followed after.” See the translator’s note at 2:5 for the idiom.
- Jeremiah 8:2 tn Heb “they will not.” But the referent is far enough removed that it might be ambiguous.
- Jeremiah 8:2 tn Heb “like dung/manure on the surface of the ground.”
- Jeremiah 8:3 tn Heb “Death will be chosen rather than life by the remnant who are left from this wicked family in all the places where I have banished them.” The sentence is broken up and restructured to avoid possible confusion because of the complexity of the English to some modern readers. There appears to be an extra “those who are left” that was inadvertently copied from the preceding line. It is missing from one Hebrew ms and from the Greek and Syriac versions and is probably not a part of the original text.
- Jeremiah 8:3 tn Heb “Yahweh of Armies.”sn For the significance of this title see the notes at 2:19 and 7:3.
- Jeremiah 8:4 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.
- Jeremiah 8:4 sn There is a play on two different nuances of the same Hebrew word that means “turn” and “return,” “turn away” and “turn back.”
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