You shall not escape from his hand: This negative statement is repeated and emphasized by the following positive statement but shall surely be captured. In Hebrew the pronoun You is emphatic. Some translations, for example New Jerusalem Bible, make this clear with “you yourself.” Twice in this verse, once in verse 2, and once in verse 1 (in the construction “under his dominion”), hand is used as the equivalent of “power” or “control.” New Jerusalem Bible has “you yourself will not escape from clutches” and New International Version “You will not escape from his grasp.”

But shall surely be captured and delivered into his hand: Shall surely be captured is literally “being captured you will be captured,” a normal emphatic expression in Hebrew. For those languages that would not use a passive construction here, translators will have to supply an agent, as in “They [or, Those soldiers] will capture you and hand you over to him.”

You shall see the king of Babylon eye to eye and speak with him face to face: See 32.4. For eye to eye many English speakers would say “face-to-face” here, as Good News Translation does. Good News Translation then renders the expression face to face in the next clause as “in person.”

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 .