If this fixed order departs from before me: Although this expression is natural in Hebrew, it is very uncommon for most other languages. Traduction œcuménique de la Bible renders “If I should lose control of this order” and New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh “If these laws should ever be annulled by Me.” Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch very effectively restructures the verse:

• Just as I will make certain that these ordinances are never annulled, so I will make certain that Israel will exist and be my people for all time.

Revised English Bible is similar, and also a good model:

• Israel could no more cease to be a nation in my sight, says the LORD, than could this fixed order vanish before my eyes.

Another possibility is:

• It is just as unlikely that I will allow this regular order of things to cease as for me to allow Israel to stop existing as a nation.

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 .