complete verse (Jeremiah 10:15)

Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Jeremiah 10:15:

  • Kupsabiny: “(They) have no goodness at all,
    and they deserve to be mocked.
    God will destroy (them) when he comes to pass judgment on those things.” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
  • Hiligaynon: “They are without value and object-of-scorn. A time will-come that they will- all -be-destroyed.” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
  • English: “Idols are worthless; they deserve to be ridiculed;
    there will be a time when they all will be destroyed.” (Source: Translation for Translators)

Translation commentary on Jeremiah 10:15

Worthless translates the same word first used in 2.5; it is the same word that Revised Standard Version renders “false” in verse 3 and “idols” in verse 8.

Delusion appears in the Old Testament only here and in 51.18. A number of translations interpret it here as “mockery;” New International Version, for example, has “the objects of mockery.” In Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch this first clause is translated as a complete sentence: “They are worthless images, to be made fun of.” Luther 1984 links the clause with the last part of verse 14: “… since their gods are a delusion and have no life, 15 they are nothing, a caricature….”

At the time of their punishment assumes that the LORD is the one who does the punishing: “At the time that the LORD punishes them” or “When the Lord holds judgment” (Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch). Good News Translation inverts the order of at the time of their punishment they shall perish: “they will be destroyed when the LORD comes to deal with them.”

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 .