Jerusalem here describes its situation using the figure of a tent that has been torn down with all of its inhabitants gone. Good News Translation restructures the verse so that the people of Jerusalem are speaking, thus requiring the plural “Our tents … Our children….”

The cords are the tent cords, which Good News Translation makes clear: “the ropes that held them.”

My children are, of course, the inhabitants of the city.

The text has have gone from me, which can also be rendered as “have left.” Good News Translation “have all gone away” also follows this. The Hebrew allows for either. In place of my children have gone from me, and they are not, Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch translates “I will never see my children again; they have gone away.”

My curtains: See the comment at 4.20. As stated there, many commentators understand the tent and the curtains to refer to the temple, in which case it would be better to retain tent as in the text, rather than use “tents” and “their” with Good News Translation.

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 .