Since the verbs and pronouns of this verse are feminine, a number of commentators and translators identify the person addressed as the city of Jerusalem (King James Version [King James Version], Revised English Bible, Good News Translation, Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch).
Cut off your hair: Cutting off the hair was an act of mourning (see Job 1.20; Micah 1.16). According to Deut 14.1, the people of Israel were forbidden to gash themselves or shave the front of their head when mourning for the dead (see 16.6). In order to identify the persons addressed and at the same time state the significance of cutting off the hair, Good News Translation translates “Mourn, people of Jerusalem; cut off your hair and throw it away.” It is also possible to say “People of Jerusalem, cut off your hair to show you are in mourning, and throw it away.” It is significant that the word here used of hair actually refers to the head of long hair which is characteristic of persons who had taken the Nazarite vow of dedication to the LORD (see Num 6.5). The people of Jerusalem had broken their vow to the LORD, and so they are told to cut off their hair as a symbol of what they have done.
Raise a lamentation is more naturally expressed in Good News Translation as “Sing a funeral song.” Another possible rendering is “Sing a song of mourning.” Elsewhere in Jeremiah the noun lamentation is used only in 9.10, 20 (Revised Standard Version “dirge”).
Bare heights: See 3.2 for the first occurrence of the noun.
The two verbs rejected and forsaken carry precisely the same meaning, and the generation of his wrath means “the people the LORD is angry with.” Good News Translation translates the two verbs as one, and at the same time inverts the order of events: “because I, the LORD, am angry and have rejected my people.” Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch makes two sentences: “The Lord feels only anger for you. He has forsaken you and will have nothing more to do with you.” Translators may also say “For I, the LORD, have completely rejected these people that I am angry with.”
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 .