Ordered … saying: Here again saying becomes the Hebrew equivalent of opening quotation marks.

Debarred: Elsewhere this verb means “confined” (33.1; 39.15), but here the context suggests “no longer allowed” (Good News Translation) or “prevented” (New Jerusalem Bible).

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 .