Stubbornly rebellious: See 5.23 (“a stubborn and rebellious heart”).

The noun translated slanders is found also in 9.4, where Revised Standard Version has “slanderer”; elsewhere in the Old Testament it is found in Lev 19.16; Ezek 22.9; Pro 11.13 (“talebearer”); 20.19 (“gossiping”). It is used of persons who speak evil of other persons, and Good News Translation translates it with the sense of “spreading gossip.” However, Moffatt understands the word to be used with the LORD as object: “slandering me up and down!”

They are bronze and iron is much better rendered as a comparison: “they are like bronze and iron” or “they are as hard as bronze and iron.” Bassa in Liberia has “Their hearts are hardened like bronze and iron.” Good News Translation reorders the clauses in the verse, placing they are bronze and iron immediately following they are all stubbornly rebellious: “They are all stubborn rebels, hard as bronze and iron.”

Act corruptly can be “practice dishonesty.”

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 .