The word translated pain occurs only here in Jeremiah; the word wound is first used in 6.7.

Incurable and refusing to be healed are essentially identical in meaning here, although the second does intensify the first enough to make it worth trying to retain the two parts. Good News Translation expresses this quite well: “Why are my wounds incurable? Why won’t they heal?”

A deceitful brook is a spring or brook that dries up in the summer and cannot be depended upon for water. In 2.13 the LORD is compared to a “spring of fresh water” (Good News Translation), which means water that may be depended upon. Waters that fail is to be taken as a parallel to a deceitful brook. For the two expressions Good News Translation has “a stream that goes dry in the summer.” But translators can also say “like a stream that goes dry or a spring that stops flowing.” Notice that Good News Translation makes clear the point of the comparison between the LORD and the dried-up stream: “Do you intend to disappoint me like a stream…?”

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 .