Shrub (Good News Translation “bush”) is translated “barren bush” by New American Bible and “juniper” by Revised English Bible. It would be best to use a general term rather than the name of a particular bush or shrub. (See also Phoenician juniper (coastal juniper))

For desert see 2.6, under “deserts.”

And shall not see any good come is better applied to the person than to the bush, and so Good News Translation and Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch place it last in the verse. The rest of the verse is then tied immediately to the picture of a desert shrub (see Good News Translation).

Parched places translates a noun that occurs only here in the Old Testament. It derives from a verb that means “glow” or “burn” (see Ezek 24.11; Job 30.30), and may refer to either an area covered by lava or a stony desert area. In the parched places is translated “among the rocks” by Revised English Bible. Most translators will be able to use something similar to Good News Translation “dry wasteland.”

Wilderness: See 2.2.

Salt land (Good News Translation “salty ground”) translates a noun that occurs in the Old Testament elsewhere only in Job 39.6; Psa 107.34. No vegetation could grow in a salty area, which is perhaps why Good News Translation renders an uninhabited salt land as “salty ground where nothing else grows.” Translators can also say “a salty area, where no one can live.”

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 .