Woe is me is rendered more naturally in Good News Translation “What an unhappy man I am!” and Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch “How unfortunate I am” (compare 4.31).

In the text Jeremiah’s complaint is addressed to his mother: Woe is me, my mother, that you bore me. Most translations keep the address form with something such as “How unfortunate for me, mother, that you gave birth to me [or, that I was ever born]!” However, the use is figurative and rhetorical; Jeremiah is not really expecting his statement to be heard by his mother. Good News Translation therefore puts mother in third person: “What an unhappy man I am! Why did my mother bring me into this world?” It is also possible to drop the address form: “How terrible for me that I was born!”

Strife translates the noun first used in 11.20 (Revised Standard Version “cause”). Contention translates a word found only here in the book of Jeremiah. One scholar notes that the root of this word indicates a process in a legal court, and that the two words together indicate “legal strife” and “legal contention.” Thus Jeremiah is pictured as someone who is constantly involved in legal action against his people. The Hebrew text conveys the idea that Jeremiah is the victim of the strife and contention, not the person who is its source. Thus “I quarrel and struggle with everyone” is probably not correct. Rather, translators should have “Everyone in the country opposes and quarrels with me.” Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch renders “people oppose me and quarrel with me.”

The verbs lent and borrowed may require objects: “I have not lent any money or borrowed any” (Good News Translation). It may also be necessary to indicate the person the money was lent to: “I have not lent money to anyone….” In Hebrew the verbs lent and borrowed do not necessarily include the sense that the lending and borrowing were done at interest.

Curse does not refer to the use of profanity (bad language); the meaning is either “wish or ask a curse upon” or “treat with contempt.” Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch has “wish for evil to befall,” and Revised English Bible has “abuses.”

Quoted with permission from Newman, Barclay M. and Stine, Philip C. A Handbook on Jeremiah. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2003. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .