In Hebrew both occurrences of the pronoun I are emphatic. Good News Translation attempts to reproduce this emphasis by rendering, “I alone know the plans I have for you….” Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch is very effective with a play on words, rendering “For my plans for you remain firm: I intend your fortune and not your misfortune….” Another way to express this is “For I know what I am planning for you. I am planning good things, not bad things. What I plan to do will give you the future you hope for.”

For welfare see verse 7; for evil see 1.14.

To give you a future and a hope: A future and a hope may mean either “the future you hope for” (Good News Translation) or “a future full of hope” (Good News Translation footnote, New American Bible). Moffatt has “hope for the future” and Knox “a destiny and a hope.” For many translators these interpretations may be difficult if future and hope need to be expressed more concretely or by verbs. One alternative is “I will give you the kind of life where you can know that good things will happen to you in the future.”

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 .