▼tn Heb “Thus says the Lord.” However, the speech has already been introduced as first person, so the first person style has been retained for smoother narrative style.

▼tn Heb “Behold, I will give this city into the hand of…”

▼tn Heb “The Chaldeans.” See the study note on 21:4 for further explanation.

▼tn Heb “The Chaldeans.” See the study note on 21:4 for further explanation.

▼sn Cf. Jer 19:13.

▼tn Heb “that which is evil in my eyes.” For this idiom see BDB 744 s.v. עַיִן 3.c and compare usage in 18:10.

▼tn Heb “from their youth.”

▼sn Cf. Jer 3:24-25 and 11:21. The nation is being personified, and reference is made to her history from the time she left Egypt onward (cf. 2:2).

▼tn Heb “the people of Israel.” However, since “people of Israel” has been used in the preceding line for the northern kingdom as opposed to the kingdom of Judah, it might lead to confusion to translate literally. Moreover, the pronoun “they” accomplishes the same purpose.

▼tn Heb “by the work of their hands.” See the translator’s note on 25:6 and the parallelism in 25:14 for this rendering rather than referring it to the making of idols as in 1:16 and 10:3.

▼tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

▼tn The statements in vv. 28-29 regarding the certain destruction of the city are motivated by three parallel causal clauses in vv. 30a, 30b and 31, the last of which extends through subordinate and coordinate clauses until the end of v. 35. An attempt has been made to bring out this structure by repeating the idea “This/it will happen” in front of each of these causal clauses in the English translation.

▼tn Heb “from the day they built it until this day.”

▼sn The Israelites did not in fact “build” Jerusalem. They captured it from the Jebusites in the time of David. This refers perhaps to the enlarging and fortifying of the city after it came into the hands of the Israelites (2 Sam 5:6-10).

▼tn Heb “For this city has been to me for a source of my anger and my wrath from the day they built it until this day, so as remove it.” The preposition לְ (lamed) with the infinitive (Heb “so as to remove it”; לַהֲסִירָהּ, lahasirah) expresses degree (cf. R. J. Williams, Hebrew Syntax, 37, §199, and compare usage in 2 Sam 13:2).

▼tn Heb “remove it from my sight 32:32 because of all the wickedness of the children of Israel and the children of Judah that they have done to make me angry, they, their kings, their officials, their priests, and their prophets, and the men of Judah, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem.” The sentence has been broken up in conformity with contemporary English style, and an attempt has been made to preserve the causal connections.

▼tn Heb “they have turned [their] backs to me, not [their] faces.” Compare the same idiom in 2:27.

▼tn For the idiom involved here see the translator’s note on 7:13. The verb that introduces this clause is a Piel infinitive absolute that is functioning in place of the finite verb (see, e.g., GKC 346 §113.ff and compare usage in Jer 8:15 and 14:19. This grammatical point means that the versions cited in BHS fn a may not be reading a different text after all, but may merely be interpreting the form as syntactically equivalent to a finite verb, as the present translation has done.).

▼sn This refers to God teaching them through the prophets whom he has sent, as indicated by the repeated use of this idiom elsewhere in 7:13, 25; 11:7; 25:3, 4; 26:5, 19.

▼tn Heb “But they were not listening so as to accept correction.”

▼tn Heb “the house that is called by my name” (cf. 7:10, 11, 14, and see the translator’s note on 7:10 for the explanation for this rendering).

▼sn Cf. Jer 7:30-31; 19:5; and the study notes on 7:30. The god Molech is especially associated with the practice of child sacrifice (Lev 18:21; 20:2-5; 2 Kgs 23:10). In 1 Kgs 11:7 this god is identified as the god of the Ammonites, who is also called Milcom in 1 Kgs 11:5 and 2 Kgs 23:13. Child sacrifice, however, was not confined to this god; it was also made to the god Baal (Jer 19:5) and to other idols that the Israelites had set up (Ezek 16:20-21). Yet this behavior was strictly prohibited in Israel (Lev 18:21; 20:2-5; Deut 12:31; 18:10). It was this practice, as well as other pagan rites that Manasseh had instituted in Judah, that ultimately led to Judah’s demise (2 Kgs 24:3-4). Though Josiah tried to root these pagan traditions (2 Kgs 23:4-14) out of Judah, he could not do so. The people had only made a pretense of following his reforms; their hearts were still far from God (Jer 3:10; 12:2).

▼tn Heb “They built high places to Baal, which are in the Valley of Ben Hinnom, to cause their sons and daughters to pass through [the fire] to Molech, [a thing] which I did not command them and [which] did not go up into my heart [= “mind” in modern psychology], to do this abomination so as to make Judah liable for punishment.” For the use of the Hiphil of חָטָא (khataʾ) to refer to the liability for punishment, see BDB s.v. חָטָא Hiph.3 and compare the usage in Deut 24:8. Coming at the end as this does, this nuance is much more likely than “cause Judah to sin,” which is the normal translation assigned to the verb here. The particle לְמַעַן (lemaʿan) that precedes it is here once again introducing a result and not a purpose (compare other clear examples in 27:10, 15). The sentence has been broken down in conformity to contemporary English style, and an attempt has been made to make clear that what is detestable and not commanded is not merely child sacrifice to Molech but child sacrifice in general.