Good News Translation does not find it natural or necessary in English to repeat the Chaldeans who are fighting against this city. This will be the case in many other languages also.

With the houses on whose roofs incense has been offered to Baal and drink offerings have been poured out to other gods: Compare 19.13 with the terms used here. As Hebrew Old Testament Text Project indicates, with the houses … is best taken emphatically, “especially the houses….” The indication is that those places where incense was once offered to Baal will themselves now be burned as offerings to the LORD. The roofs were flat, with access from outside the house, and were designed to accommodate various activities (see 19.13). As such, they were ideal locations for offering incense (see 1.16) and drink offerings (see 7.18), which were probably wine (Good News Translation “pouring out wine offerings”), rather than water. For Baal see 2.8. For other gods, see 1.16. If “God” cannot be made into a plural, translators can say something like “other things [or, idols] people worship [as they do God].”

In the text, to provoke me to anger comes at the end of the sentence (see 7.18). Translators can say “These things made me angry” or “These are the things that made me angry.” However, Good News Translation has made the clause fit naturally in the verse with “the houses where people have made me angry by burning incense.”

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 .