For thus says the LORD: See 2.2.

Behold (see 1.6) is used as an attention-getter.

Slinging is used in a nonfigurative sense with stones as its object in Jdg 20.16. Here it is used figuratively, so Good News Translation translates the force of the verb as “is going to throw you out.”

The inhabitants of the land: The Hebrew text uses third person. It is often better, however, to retain second person “you,” as in Good News Translation. This is especially true if translators are using indirect speech.

Good News Translation does not include the phrase at this time, on the assumption that it is clearly understood in its restructuring. Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch translates “This time I am driving the people out of this land into exile.”

Bring distress translates a verb that appears in a participle form in 48.41; 49.22, where it is used of a woman having birth pains. Translators may say something like “I will cause them to suffer greatly” or “I will inflict great pain on them.” The construction I will bring … that they may is perhaps more naturally expressed as “I will…, until they…” or “I will…, and they will….”

That they may feel it: There are two ways of interpreting this clause. (1) The text is more literally “that they may find/meet with.” In English, as in many other languages, the construction requires an object, and Revised Standard Version supplies it. (2) If the Hebrew is given slightly different vowels, then in place of the verb “find” we have “squeeze out” (see Revised English Bible “squeeze them dry”).

Either of these two interpretations is legitimate on the basis of the Hebrew itself. For the last two lines the restructuring of both Good News Translation (“he is going to crush you until not one of you is left”) and Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch (“They will experience oppression from which there is no escape”) apparently presuppose the second interpretation. One commentator changes the Hebrew text so that it says “I’ll hem them in to prevent their escape,” and New Jerusalem Bible follows another alternative suggestion, “so that they may find me”; but neither of these has textual support. The renderings of Moffatt (“until they pay the penalty”) and An American Translation (“so that they may pay for their guilt”) would appear to be based upon the text followed by Revised Standard Version. Those translators who follow the first interpretation listed above may say something like “I will cause them to suffer greatly until they really are in pain” or “I will inflict great pain on them which they will really feel.” Those who follow the second interpretation can say “I will afflict them until they are squeezed out of the land completely [or, until there is nothing of them left here].”

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 .