Set up a standard against is best understood in the sense of Good News Translation, Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch, and others: “Give the signal to attack.”

Make the watch strong is more naturally expressed as “Strengthen the guard!” (Good News Translation, New Jerusalem Bible). The idea is to reinforce the soldiers assigned as guards, that is, to add to them. It can be helpful to render this as “Increase the number of the guards.”

Set up watchmen is translated “Post the sentries!” by both New Jerusalem Bible and Good News Translation, while New American Bible has “Post sentries.” This is the interpretation of the text accepted by most, though some scholars feel the meaning is “Set up the road blocks!” (Bright). In this case the command would not be to post sentries for security, but rather to station men in positions to ward off sudden enemy attacks. This is seen to balance out with the following command (prepare the ambushes) by which other men would be placed in a position to make a sudden attack on the enemy. However, this is not the interpretation followed by most commentators, and translators will usually say something such as “Assign men to be sentries” or “Assign men to watch that no one comes by.”

Prepare the ambushes means to put men in hiding to make a surprise attack. In this case it would be to catch any who try to escape from the city. Translators can say, for example, “Put men in hiding to attack people who flee.”

For the LORD has both planned and done what he spoke is expressed more briefly by Good News Translation as “The LORD has done what he said he would do.” The verb planned is the same one rendered “purposed” by Revised Standard Version in 4.28.

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 .