Jeremiah 6:8

THE MESSAGE

Parallel Translations

Christian Standard Bible®
Be warned, Jerusalem,or I will turn away from you;I will make you a desolation,a land without inhabitants.

Hebrew Names Version
Be instructed, Yerushalayim, lest my soul be alienated from you; lest I make you a desolation, a land not inhabited.

King James Version
Be thou instructed, O Jerusalem, lest my soul depart from thee; lest I make thee desolate, a land not inhabited.

English Standard Version
Be warned, O Jerusalem, lest I turn from you in disgust, lest I make you a desolation, an uninhabited land."

New American Standard Bible
"Be warned, Jerusalem, Or I shall be alienated from you, And make you a desolation, An uninhabited land."

New Century Version
Listen to this warning, Jerusalem, or I will turn my back on you and make your land an empty desert where no one can live."

Amplified Bible
"Be wise and be warned, O Jerusalem, Or I will be alienated from you, And make you a desolation, An uninhabited land."

World English Bible
Be instructed, Jerusalem, lest my soul be alienated from you; lest I make you a desolation, a land not inhabited.

Geneva Bible (1587)
Be thou instructed, O Ierusalem, lest my soule depart from thee, lest I make thee desolate as a land, that none inhabiteth.

Legacy Standard Bible
Heed discipline, O Jerusalem,Lest My soul become disgusted at you,Lest I make you a desolation,A land not inhabited."

Berean Standard Bible
Be warned, O Jerusalem, or I will turn away from you; I will make you a desolation, a land without inhabitants."

Contemporary English Version
Listen to me, you people of Jerusalem and Judah. I will abandon you, and your land will become an empty desert.

Complete Jewish Bible
Accept correction, Yerushalayim, or I will be estranged from you and turn you into a desolate waste, a land without inhabitants."

Darby Translation
Be thou instructed, Jerusalem, lest my soul be alienated from thee; lest I make thee a desolation, a land not inhabited.

Easy-to-Read Version
Listen to this warning, Jerusalem, or I will turn my back on you. I will make your land an empty desert. No one will be able to live there."

George Lamsa Translation
Be chastised, O Jerusalem, lest my soul abhor you; lest I make you desolate like an uninhabited land.

Good News Translation
People of Jerusalem, let these troubles be a warning to you, or else I will abandon you; I will turn your city into a desert, a place where no one lives."

Lexham English Bible
Be warned, O Jerusalem, lest I turn away from you in disgust, lest I make you a desolation, a land that is not inhabited."

Literal Translation
O Jerusalem, take advice, that My soul not be alienated from you; that I not make you a ruin, a land with not one living in it .

Miles Coverdale Bible (1535)
Amede the (o Ierusalem) lest I with drawe my herte from the, and make the desolate: & thy londe also, yt no man dwel in it.

American Standard Version
Be thou instructed, O Jerusalem, lest my soul be alienated from thee; lest I make thee a desolation, a land not inhabited.

Bible in Basic English
Undergo teaching, O Jerusalem, or my soul will be turned away from you, and I will make you a waste, an unpeopled land.

JPS Old Testament (1917)
Be thou corrected, O Jerusalem, lest My soul be alienated from thee, lest I make thee desolate, a land not inhabited.

King James Version (1611)
Be thou instructed, O Ierusalem, lest my soule depart from thee: lest I make thee desolate, a lande not inhabited.

Bishop's Bible (1568)
Amende thee (O Hierusalem) lest I withdrawe my heart from thee, and make thee desolate, and thy lande also, that no man dwell in it.

Brenton's Septuagint (LXX)
Thou shalt be chastened, O Jerusalem, with pain and the scourge, lest my soul depart from thee; lest I make thee a desert land, which shall not be inhabited.

English Revised Version
Be thou instructed, O Jerusalem, lest my soul be alienated from thee; lest I make thee a desolation, a land not inhabited.

Wycliffe Bible (1395)
Jerusalem, be thou tauyt, lest perauenture my soule go awei fro thee; lest perauenture Y sette thee forsakun, a loond vnhabitable.

Update Bible Version
Be instructed, O Jerusalem, or else my soul will be alienated from you; and I will make you a desolation, a land not inhabited.

Webster's Bible Translation
Be thou instructed, O Jerusalem, lest my soul depart from thee; lest I make thee desolate, a land not inhabited.

New English Translation
So take warning, Jerusalem, or I will abandon you in disgust and make you desolate, a place where no one can live."

New King James Version
Be instructed, O Jerusalem, Lest My soul depart from you; Lest I make you desolate, A land not inhabited."

New Living Translation
Listen to this warning, Jerusalem, or I will turn from you in disgust. Listen, or I will turn you into a heap of ruins, a land where no one lives."

New Life Bible
Listen about the danger, O Jerusalem, or I will become a stranger to you. I will make you a waste, a land with no people."

New Revised Standard
Take warning, O Jerusalem, or I shall turn from you in disgust, and make you a desolation, an uninhabited land.

J.B. Rotherham Emphasized Bible
Receive thou correction O Jerusalem, Lest my soul be torn from thee, - Lest I make thee A desolation, A land not habitable.

Douay-Rheims Bible
Be thou instructed, O Jerusalem, lest my soul depart from thee, lest I make thee desolate, a land uninhabited.

Revised Standard Version
Be warned, O Jerusalem, lest I be alienated from you; lest I make you a desolation, an uninhabited land."

Young's Literal Translation
Be instructed, O Jerusalem, Lest My soul be alienated from thee, Lest I make thee a desolation, a land not inhabited.

New American Standard Bible (1995)
"Be warned, O Jerusalem, Or I shall be alienated from you, And make you a desolation, A land not inhabited."

Contextual Overview

¹ "Run for your lives, children of Benjamin! Get out of Jerusalem, and now! Give a blast on the ram's horn in Blastville. Send up smoke signals from Smoketown. Doom pours out of the north— massive terror! I have likened my dear daughter Zion to a lovely meadow. Well, now ‘shepherds' from the north have discovered her and brought in their flocks of soldiers. They've pitched camp all around her, and plan where they'll ‘graze.' And then, ‘Prepare to attack! The fight is on! To arms! We'll strike at noon! Oh, it's too late? Day is dying? Evening shadows are upon us? Well, up anyway! We'll attack by night and tear apart her defenses stone by stone.'" ⁶ God -of-the-Angel-Armies gave the orders: "Chop down her trees. Build a siege ramp against Jerusalem, A city full of brutality, bursting with violence. Just as a well holds a good supply of water, she supplies wickedness nonstop. The streets echo the cries: ‘Violence! Rape!' Victims, bleeding and moaning, lie all over the place. You're in deep trouble, Jerusalem. You've pushed me to the limit. You're on the brink of being wiped out, being turned into a ghost town."

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

Be thou: Jeremiah 4:14, Jeremiah 7:3-7, Jeremiah 17:23, Jeremiah 31:19, Jeremiah 32:33, Jeremiah 35:13-15, Deuteronomy 32:29, Psalms 2:10, Psalms 50:17, Psalms 94:12, Proverbs 4:13, Zephaniah 3:7

lest: Ezekiel 23:18, Hosea 9:12, Zechariah 11:8, Zechariah 11:9

depart: Heb. be loosed, or disjointed

lest I: Jeremiah 2:15, Jeremiah 7:20, Jeremiah 7:34, Jeremiah 9:11, Leviticus 26:34

Reciprocal: Joshua 7:12 - neither Isaiah 1:7 - country Jeremiah 7:28 - correction Jeremiah 12:11 - made it Lamentations 3:11 - he hath made Ezekiel 10:18 - the glory Zephaniah 1:2 - I will Matthew 21:17 - he left Matthew 23:37 - Jerusalem Matthew 24:1 - departed

Cross-References

Genesis 6:17
"I'm going to bring a flood on the Earth that will destroy everything alive under Heaven. Total destruction.

Psalms 145:20
God sticks by all who love him, but it's all over for those who don't.

Proverbs 12:2
A good person basks in the delight of God , and he wants nothing to do with devious schemers.

Jeremiah 31:2
This is the way God put it: "They found grace out in the desert, these people who survived the killing. Israel, out looking for a place to rest, met God out looking for them!" God told them, "I've never quit loving you and never will. Expect love, love, and more love! And so now I'll start over with you and build you up again, dear virgin Israel. You'll resume your singing, grabbing tambourines and joining the dance. You'll go back to your old work of planting vineyards on the Samaritan hillsides, And sit back and enjoy the fruit— oh, how you'll enjoy those harvests! The time's coming when watchmen will call out from the hilltops of Ephraim: ‘On your feet! Let's go to Zion, go to meet our God !'"

Romans 4:4
If you're a hard worker and do a good job, you deserve your pay; we don't call your wages a gift. But if you see that the job is too big for you, that it's something only God can do, and you trust him to do it—you could never do it for yourself no matter how hard and long you worked—well, that trusting-him-to-do-it is what gets you set right with God, by God. Sheer gift.

Romans 11:6
The Loyal Minority Does this mean, then, that God is so fed up with Israel that he'll have nothing more to do with them? Hardly. Remember that I, the one writing these things, am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham out of the tribe of Benjamin. You can't get much more Semitic than that! So we're not talking about repudiation. God has been too long involved with Israel, has too much invested, to simply wash his hands of them. Do you remember that time Elijah was agonizing over this same Israel and cried out in prayer? God, they murdered your prophets, They trashed your altars; I'm the only one left and now they're after me! And do you remember God's answer? I still have seven thousand who haven't quit, Seven thousand who are loyal to the finish. It's the same today. There's a fiercely loyal minority still—not many, perhaps, but probably more than you think. They're holding on, not because of what they think they're going to get out of it, but because they're convinced of God's grace and purpose in choosing them. If they were only thinking of their own immediate self-interest, they would have left long ago.

1 Corinthians 15:10
But because God was so gracious, so very generous, here I am. And I'm not about to let his grace go to waste. Haven't I worked hard trying to do more than any of the others? Even then, my work didn't amount to all that much. It was God giving me the work to do, God giving me the energy to do it. So whether you heard it from me or from those others, it's all the same: We spoke God's truth and you entrusted your lives.

Titus 2:11
God's readiness to give and forgive is now public. Salvation's available for everyone! We're being shown how to turn our backs on a godless, indulgent life, and how to take on a God-filled, God-honoring life. This new life is starting right now, and is whetting our appetites for the glorious day when our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, appears. He offered himself as a sacrifice to free us from a dark, rebellious life into this good, pure life, making us a people he can be proud of, energetic in goodness.

Gill's Notes on the Bible

And be thou instructed, O Jerusalem,.... Or "corrected" s; receive discipline or instructions by chastisements and corrections, return by repentance, that the evils threatened may not come: this shows the affection of the Lord to his people, notwithstanding all their sins; that their amendment, and not their destruction, were pleasing to him; that it was with reluctance he was about to visit them in the manner threatened; and that even now it was not too late, provided they were instructed and reformed; but, if not, they must expect what follows:

lest my soul depart from thee; his Shechinah, or divine Presence, and all the tokens of his love, favour, and good will. The Targum interprets it of the Word of the Lord,

"lest my Word cast thee off;''

see Romans 11:1, or, "lest my soul pluck itself from thee"; or "be plucked" t, and separated from thee: the phrase denotes an utter separation, a forcible one, joined with the utmost abhorrence and detestation. In Ezekiel 23:18, it is rendered, "my mind was alienated"; it denotes disunion and disaffection.

Lest I make thee desolate, a land not inhabited; the Targum adds, by way of illustration,

"as the land of Sodom;''

so that not a man should dwell in it; see Jeremiah 4:25.

s הוסרי "cape disciplinam", Vatablus; "admitte disciplinam", Cocceius; "castigationem", Schmidt. t פן תקע נפשי ממך "ut non luxetur, [vel] avellatur anima mea a te", Vatablus, Junius & Tremellius, Schmidt.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Be thou instructed - Be thou chastised: learn the lesson which chastisement is intended to teach thee.

Lest my soul - Lest I Myself - not “depart from thee,” God does not willingly leave His people, but - “be torn from thee.”

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse Jeremiah 6:8. Be thou instructed — Still there is respite: if they would even now return unto the Lord with all their heart, the advancing Chaldeans would be arrested on their march and turned back.