The wind shall shepherd all your shepherds: An obvious play on words is intended between the verb shepherd and the noun shepherds. Since the shepherds are the nation’s leaders (see 2.8; 3.15), the meaning is “Your leaders will be blown away by the wind” (Good News Translation). However, it may be better to replace the metaphor with a simile, as in Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch, which translates the first two lines as follows: “As your allies, so shall all of your own leaders be led away into captivity; they will all be swept away as by a storm.”

As in verse 20, lovers refers to “allies” or “leaders.”

For captivity see 15.2.

Ashamed: See 2.26 and 2.36.

Confounded: See 14.3, where ashamed also occurs.

Your wickedness; that is, “the wicked things you have done” or “how evil you have been.”

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 .