Behold: See 1.6. Here translators can say “So, look. Now the Babylonians….”

Siege mounds have come up to the city to take it: Siege mounds are apparently in a position where the enemy can easily attack the wall. In many languages it will be impossible to refer to inanimate objects such as siege mounds doing anything on their own. Good News Translation has “The Babylonians have built siege mounds around the city to capture it.” If siege mounds (see 6.6) need further description, translators can also express the meaning of the sentence as “The Babylonians have built mounds around the city so they can attack it and capture it.”

Because of sword and famine and pestilence the city is given into the hands of the Chaldeans: For sword as the equivalent of “war” (Good News Translation), see 5.12. Sword and famine and pestilence first occur as a unit at 14.12. Rather than using these impersonal terms, translators may find it better to say “Because the people will suffer from war, famine [or, starvation] and disease, the Babylonians will be able to capture the city.” As elsewhere in this passage, Chaldeans can be rendered by “Babylonians.” See 21.4.

What thou didst speak has come to pass, and behold, thou seest it: In Good News Translation the order of clauses is changed (“You can see that all you have said has come true”). Jerusalem Bible renders “What you have said is now fulfilled, as you see,” and New Jerusalem Bible is still clearer with “What you said has now come true, as you see.”

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 .