Therefore, behold, the days are coming: See 7.32.

Says the LORD: See 1.8.

I will cause the battle cry to be heard against Rabbah: The battle cry is given a somewhat broader reference by Good News Translation: “the noise of battle.” The battle cry will be heard against Rabbah; that is, the LORD is saying, “I will make the people of Rabbah hear the battle cries of attackers.” Both Good News Translation and Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch identify Rabbah as “the capital city” of the Ammonites.

A desolate mound: In Good News Translation this is “left in ruins.” In ancient Israel and the countries surrounding it, cities were built on elevated places, and a destroyed city would be a pile of ruins on top of a mound. See 30.18.

Its villages shall be burned with fire: Burned with fire is somewhat redundant (see 34.2) and may be rendered “burnt down” (New Jerusalem Bible) or “burned to the ground” (Good News Translation). We may also render “destroyed by fire.” If the language requires an active sentence, translators can say, for example, “the enemy will burn down its villages.”

Israel shall dispossess those who dispossessed him indicates that the people of Israel will again claim the territory that once belonged to them (the territory of Gad in particular).

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 .