¹Lord , you have always been fair

whenever I have complained to you.

However, I would like to speak with you about the disposition of justice.

Why are wicked people successful?

Why do all dishonest people have such easy lives?

²You plant them like trees and they put down their roots.[#tn Heb “You planted them and they took root.”]

They grow prosperous and are very fruitful.

They always talk about you,

but they really care nothing about you.

³But you, Lord , know all about me.

You watch me and test my devotion to you.

Drag these wicked men away like sheep to be slaughtered!

Appoint a time when they will be killed!

⁴How long must the land be parched[#tn The verb here is often translated “mourn.” However, this verb is from a homonymic root meaning “to be dry” (cf. HALOT 7 s.v. II אָבַל and compare Hos 4:3 for usage).]

and the grass in every field be withered?

How long must the animals and the birds die

because of the wickedness of the people who live in this land?

For these people boast,

“God will not see what happens to us.”

⁵The Lord answered,[#tn The words “The Lord answered” are not in the text but are implicit from the context. They are supplied in the translation for clarity.]

“If you have raced on foot against men and they have worn you out,

how will you be able to compete with horses?

And if you feel secure only in safe and open country,

how will you manage in the thick undergrowth along the Jordan River?

⁶As a matter of fact, even your own brothers[#tn This is an attempt to give some contextual sense to the particle “for, indeed” (כִּי, ki).sn If the truth be known, Jeremiah wasn’t safe even in the context of his own family. They were apparently part of the plot by the people of Anathoth to kill him.]

and the members of your own family have betrayed you too.

Even they have plotted to do away with you.

So do not trust them even when they say kind things to you.

⁷“I will abandon my nation.[#tn Heb “my house.” Or “I have abandoned my nation.” The word “house” has been used throughout Jeremiah for both the temple (e.g., 7:2, 10), the nation or people of Israel or of Judah (e.g. 3:18, 20), or the descendants of Jacob (i.e., the Israelites, e.g., 2:4). Here the parallelism argues that it refers to the nation of Judah. The translation throughout vv. 5-17 assumes that the verb forms are prophetic perfects, the form that conceives of the action as being as good as done. It is possible that the forms are true perfects and refer to a past destruction of Judah. If so, it may have been connected with the assaults against Judah in 598/7 b.c. by the Babylonians and the nations surrounding Judah recorded in 2 Kgs 24:14. No other major recent English version reflects these as prophetic perfects besides NIV and NCV, which does not use the future until v. 10. Hence the translation is somewhat tentative. C. Feinberg, “Jeremiah,” EBC 6:459 takes them as prophetic perfects and H. Freedman (Jeremiah [SoBB], 88) mentions that as a possibility for explaining the presence of this passage here. For another example of an extended use of the prophetic perfect without imperfects interspersed see Isa 8:23-9:6. The translation assumes they are prophetic and are part of the Lord’s answer to the complaint about the prosperity of the wicked; both the wicked Judeans and the wicked nations God will use to punish them will be punished.]

I will forsake the people I call my own.

I will turn my beloved people

over to the power of their enemies.

⁸The people I call my own have turned on me[#tn See the note on the previous verse.]

like a lion in the forest.

They have roared defiantly at me.

So I will treat them as though I hate them.

⁹The people I call my own attack me like birds of prey or like hyenas.[#tn Or “like speckled birds of prey.” The meanings of these words are uncertain. In the Hebrew text sentence is a question: “Is not my inheritance to me a bird of prey [or] a hyena/a speckled bird of prey?” The question expects a positive answer and so is rendered here as an affirmative statement. The meaning of the word “speckled” is debated. It occurs only here. BDB 840 s.v. צָבוּעַ relates it to another word that occurs only once in Judg 5:30 which is translated “dyed stuff.” HALOT 936 s.v. צָבוּעַ relates a word found in the cognates meaning “hyena.” This is more likely and is the interpretation followed by the Greek which reads the first two words as “cave of hyena.” This translation has led some scholars to posit a homonym for the word “bird of prey” meaning “cave” which is based on Arabic parallels. The metaphor would then be of Israel carried off by hyenas and surrounded by birds of prey. The evidence for the meaning “cave” is weak and would involve a wordplay of a rare homonym with another word that is better known. For a discussion of the issues see J. Barr, Comparative Philology and the Text of the Old Testament, 128-29, 153.]

But other birds of prey are all around them.

Let all the nations gather together like wild beasts.

Let them come and destroy these people I call my own.

¹⁰Many foreign rulers will ruin the land where I planted my people.[#tn Heb “Many shepherds.” For the use of the term “shepherd” as a figure for rulers see the notes on 10:21.; #tn Heb “my vineyard.” To translate literally would presuppose an unlikely familiarity of this figure on the part of some readers. To translate as “vineyards” as some do would be misleading because that would miss the figurative nuance altogether.sn The figure of Israel as God’s vine and the land as God’s vineyard is found several times in the Bible. The best known of these is the extended metaphor in Isa 5:1-7. This figure also appears in Jer 2:20.]

They will trample all over my chosen land.

They will turn my beautiful land

into a desolate wasteland.

¹¹They will lay it waste.

It will lie parched and empty before me.

The whole land will be laid waste.

But no one living in it will pay any heed.

¹²A destructive army will come marching[#tn Heb “destroyers.”]

over the hilltops in the desert.

For the Lord will use them as his destructive weapon

against everyone from one end of the land to the other.

No one will be safe.

¹³My people will sow wheat, but will harvest weeds.[#sn Invading armies lived off the land, using up all the produce and destroying everything they could not consume.]

They will work until they are exhausted, but will get nothing from it.

They will be disappointed in their harvests

because the Lord will take them away in his fierce anger.

¹⁴“I, the Lord , also have something to say concerning the wicked nations who surround my land and have attacked and plundered the land that I gave to my people as a permanent possession. I say: ‘I will uproot the people of those nations from their lands and I will free the people of Judah who have been taken there.[#tn Heb “Thus says the Lord concerning….” This structure has been adopted to prevent a long dangling introduction to what the Lord has to say that does not begin until the middle of the verse in Hebrew. The first person address was adopted because the speaker is still the Lord as in vv. 7-13.; #tn Heb “my wicked neighbors.”; #tn Heb “touched.” For the nuance of this verb here see BDB 619 s.v. נָגַע Qal.3 and compare the usage in 1 Chr 16:22 where it is parallel to “do harm to” and Zech 2:8 where it is parallel to “plundered.”; #tn Heb “the inheritance which I caused my people Israel to inherit.” Compare 3:18.; #tn Heb “I will uproot the house of Judah from their midst.”sn There appears to be an interesting play on the Hebrew word translated “uproot” in this verse. In the first instance it refers to “uprooting the nations from upon their lands,” i.e., to exiling them. In the second instance it refers to “uprooting the Judeans from the midst of them,” i.e., to rescue them.]

¹⁵But after I have uprooted the people of those nations, I will relent and have pity on them. I will restore the people of each of those nations to their own lands and to their own country.[#tn For the use of the verb “turn” (שׁוּב, shuv) in this sense, see BDB s.v. שׁוּב Qal.6.g and compare the usage in Pss 90:13; 6:4; Joel 2:14. It does not simply mean “again” as several of the English versions render it.; #sn The Lord is sovereign over the nations and has allotted each of them their lands. See Deut 2:5 (Edom), Deut 2:9 (Moab), Deut 2:19 (Ammon). He promised to restore not only his own people Israel to their land (Jer 32:37) but also Moab (Jer 48:47) and Ammon (Jer 49:6).]

¹⁶But they must make sure you learn to follow the religious practices of my people. Once they taught my people to swear their oaths using the name of the god Baal. But then, they must swear oaths using my name, saying, “As surely as the Lord lives, I swear.” If they do these things, then they will be included among the people I call my own.[#tn Heb “the ways of my people.” For this nuance of the word “ways” compare 10:2 and the notes there.; #tn Heb “taught my people to swear by Baal.”; #tn The words “I swear” are not in the text but are implicit to the oath formula. They are supplied in the translation for clarity.; #tn The words “If they do this” are not in the text. They are part of an attempt to break up a Hebrew sentence which is long and complex into equivalent shorter sentences consistent with contemporary English style. Verse 16 in Hebrew is all one sentence with a long complex conditional clause followed by a short consequence: “If they carefully learn the ways of my people to swear by name, ‘By the life of the Lord,’ as they taught my people to swear by Baal, then they will be built up in the midst of my people.” The translation strives to create the same contingencies and modifications by breaking up the sentence into shorter sentences in accord with contemporary English style.; #tn Heb “they will be built up among my people.” The expression “be built up among” is without parallel. However, what is involved here is conceptually parallel to the ideas expressed in Isa 19:23-25 and Zech 14:16-19. That is, these people will be allowed to live on their own land, to worship the Lord there, and to come to Jerusalem to celebrate the feasts. To translate literally would be meaningless or misleading for many readers.]

¹⁷But I will completely uproot and destroy any of those nations that will not pay heed,’” says the Lord .[#tn Heb “But if they will not listen, I will uproot that nation, uprooting and destroying.” IBHS 590-91 §35.3.2d is likely right in seeing the double infinitive construction here as an intensifying infinitive followed by an adverbial infinitive qualifying the goal of the main verb, “uproot it in such a way as to destroy it.” However, to translate that way “literally” would not be very idiomatic in contemporary English. The translation strives for the equivalent. Likewise, to translate using the conditional structure of the original seems to put the emphasis of the passage in its context on the wrong point.]