For bare heights, see 3.2. For desert refer to 2.2, where it is rendered “wilderness.” Upon all the bare heights in the desert is rendered “Across all the desert highlands” by Good News Translation. Translators could also express this as “On all the barren hilltops in the desert.” Other commentators believe the Hebrew word translated heights is really “ways,” so that the line would be “Along all the bare paths in the desert.”

Destroyers translates a participle made from the same Hebrew stem as “desolate” in 4.30. Destroyers have come is translated “people have come to plunder” by Good News Translation.

In some languages translators will have to restructure the first sentence: “Men wanting to plunder are on every bare hill in the desert,” “The bare hills in the desert are covered with those who have come to destroy,” or “The bare paths in the desert are full of people who have come to plunder.”

The sword is once again used of war (see 5.17); thus in the context the sword of the LORD means “war that the LORD sends” (Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch “A war, which the Lord himself kindled”).

To devour is a common image for destroying. Consequently, many translations, for example in West Africa where the expression is common, will be able to retain it. See also verse 9. Otherwise translators will use the term “destroy,” as in Good News Translation.

The phrase from one end of the land to the other, if not easily understood, can be expressed as “throughout the land.”

No flesh has peace: Here flesh means “people”; the expression is translated “no one can live in peace” by Good News Translation.

The last part of the verse can be rendered “For when the LORD brings a war against a nation, it destroys the nation from one end to the other. No one is left in peace.”

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 .