In Hebrew the pronoun You is emphatic. Because of the shift in persons addressed, Good News Translation renders “You, Jeremiah.”
Prophesy … all these words may more naturally be expressed as “proclaim everything I have said” (Good News Translation). Some versions have “proclaim on my behalf everything I have told you.” Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch renders the entire first part of verse 30 much more briefly as “Furthermore you must give this message to the nations.” For prophesy see 19.14.
Verses 30b-31 are in poetic form. Most translations prefer to retain this, although Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch places the two verses together and uses prose.
The LORD will roar: It may be helpful to use an illustration or simile, as in Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch “As the roar of a lion the voice of the Lord comes….” If lions and roaring are not known, translators may have to use some general term in the first two lines of the poem; for example, “Like a dangerous animal roaring [or, bellowing, or, calling out a warning], the LORD will call out from heaven; his voice will be heard in his holy dwelling.”
On high … his holy habitation: Some scholars understand this to be heaven, that is, the place where the LORD lives beyond the sky. In similar passages (Amos 1.2; Joel 3.16) the place from which the LORD roars is his home in Zion. Good News Translation takes the two references as having the same sense of the LORD’s home in heaven: “The LORD will roar from heaven and thunder from the heights of heaven.”
Translators can use the same word for roar in the third line of the poem as they did in the first. With the addition of against his fold, translators can say, for example, “like a predator [or, like an animal that is hunting] threatening the sheep, he will roar [or, bellow] against his people.” The basic meaning of the word fold is “pasture” or “pasture land” (see 9.10). Here it is the equivalent of the LORD’s people (see Good News Translation).
Shout, like those who tread grapes, against all the inhabitants of the earth: Tread grapes may have to be expanded to “tread on the grapes to make juice [or, wine].” Exactly how such people would shout or in what way the menacing roar of the LORD is like the shouts of such people is not clear at all. And this is especially true because the shout is against all the inhabitants of the earth, whereas men treading grapes would not be shouting out against anyone or anything. Translators have little choice but to retain the form, but they can often choose whether to make the shouting hostile or not. An example of the first case is “He will shout out against all the people on earth, shouting like people treading the grapes [or, fruit] to make wine.” If the shouts are not hostile, they are not directed against all the earth. Good News Translation is more like the second choice: “he will shout like a man treading grapes. Everyone on earth will hear him.” This interpretation seems to make more sense in the context (see especially verse 31).
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 .