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17 I will scatter them before their enemies
like dust blowing in front of a burning east wind.
I will turn my back on them and not look favorably on them[a]
when disaster strikes them.”

Jeremiah Petitions the Lord to Punish Those Who Attack Him

18 Then some people[b] said, “Come on! Let us consider how to deal with Jeremiah![c] There will still be priests to instruct us, wise men to give us advice, and prophets to declare God’s word.[d] Come on! Let’s bring charges against him and get rid of him![e] Then we will not need to pay attention to anything he says.”

19 Then I said,[f]

Lord, pay attention to me.
Listen to what my enemies are saying.[g]

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Footnotes

  1. Jeremiah 18:17 tc Heb “I will show them [my] back and not [my] face.” This reading follows the suggestion of some of the versions and some of the Masoretes. The MT reads, “I will look on their back and not on their faces.”sn To “turn the back” is universally recognized as a symbol of rejection. The turning of the face toward one is the subject of the beautiful Aaronic blessing in Num 6:24-26.
  2. Jeremiah 18:18 tn Heb “They.” The referent is unidentified; “some people” has been used in the translation.
  3. Jeremiah 18:18 tn Heb “Let us make plans against Jeremiah.” See 18:18, where this has sinister overtones as it does here.
  4. Jeremiah 18:18 tn Heb “For instruction will not perish from priest, nor counsel from wise man, nor word from prophet.”sn These are the three channels through whom God spoke to his people in the OT. See Jer 8:8-10 and Ezek 7:26.
  5. Jeremiah 18:18 tn Heb “Let us smite him with our tongues.” It is clear from the context that this involved plots to kill him.
  6. Jeremiah 18:19 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.
  7. Jeremiah 18:19 tn Heb “the voice of my adversaries.”sn Jeremiah’s prayers against the unjust treatment of his enemies here and elsewhere (see 11:18-20; 12:1-4; 15:15-18; 17:14-18) have many elements of prayers by the innocent in the book of Psalms: an invocation of the Lord as just judge, a lament about unjust attacks, an appeal to innocence, and a cry for vindication that often calls for the Lord to pay back in kind those who unjustly attack the petitioner. See for examples Pss 5, 7, 17, and 54, among many others.