complete verse (Jeremiah 7:8)

Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Jeremiah 7:8:

  • Kupsabiny: “Please look, you are trusting in words of lying that do not help/save people.” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
  • Hiligaynon: “‘ ‘But look what you (plur.) are doing! You (plur.) trust in deceptive words that are worthless.” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
  • English: “People are repeatedly telling you, ‘The temple is here, so we are safe’,
    and you are trusting/believing that what they are saying is true, but it is a lie.
    Those people are deceiving you, and what they say is worthless.” (Source: Translation for Translators)

formal 2nd person plural pronoun (Japanese)

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Like a number of other East Asian languages, Japanese uses a complex system of honorifics, i.e. a system where a number of different levels of politeness are expressed in language via words, word forms or grammatical constructs. These can range from addressing someone or referring to someone with contempt (very informal) to expressing the highest level of reference (as used in addressing or referring to God) or any number of levels in-between.

One way Japanese shows different degree of politeness is through the choice of a formal plural suffix to the second person pronoun (“you” and its various forms) as shown here in the widely-used Japanese Shinkaiyaku (新改訳) Bible of 2017. In these verses, anata-gata (あなたがた) is used, combining the second person pronoun anata and the plural suffix -gata to create a formal plural pronoun (“you” [plural] in English).

(Source: S. E. Doi, see also S. E. Doi in Journal of Translation, 18/2022, p. 37ff. )

Translation commentary on Jeremiah 7:8

Good News Translation and Revised English Bible begin a new paragraph with this verse, which makes clear that there is a transition here from the previous verses. What now follows is in contrast in fact, and translators could also start the sentence with “But.”

Behold: See 1.6.

Deceptive words probably includes both “This is the temple of the LORD…” (verse 4) and “We are delivered!” (verse 10); that is, the phrase reflects the people’s feeling of false security given them by the presence of the LORD’s temple in their city. Deceptive words and its accompanying phrase to no avail carry essentially the same impact, and so we may follow Good News Translation (“Look, you put your trust in deceitful words”) or Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch (“Take care that you do not deceive yourselves!”). One commentator suggests that the best rendering is “You keep putting your trust in false words.” It may be helpful to make the last phrase a separate sentence: “But it is to no avail” or “But that does you no good.”

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 .