Once again in this verse the imagery of an unfaithful wife is used to emphasize Israel’s betrayal of the LORD.

Surely gives an emphatic force to the statement that follows, and it contrasts what the LORD would have expected from what the people actually did. Good News Translation has “But.” Translators can also have “Instead.”

Faithless translates the same adjective rendered “false” in 3.7. Making the comparison clear is quite straightforward for most languages, as in “In the same way an unfaithful wife leaves her husband, you have left me” or “You’ve been as unfaithful to me as a wife who leaves her husband.”

Including the address form O house of Israel at the end is sometimes unnatural. Translators can move it to verse 19 (see the discussion there) or say something such as “Just as an unfaithful wife leaves her husband, you people of Israel have been unfaithful and left me.”

Says the LORD: See 1.8.

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 .