Note that Good News Translation adds “I answered” to begin this verse since the speaker changes from the LORD to Jeremiah.
The first two clauses of this verse (To whom … may hear?) are rearranged by Good News Translation: “Who would listen to me if I spoke to them and warned them?” It is also possible to say “If I spoke out in warning [to the people], who is there who would listen to me?” Or this can be a statement: “If I do speak out in warning, no one will listen to me.”
Behold: See 1.6.
As the Revised Standard Version footnote indicates, closed is literally “uncircumcised,” indicating a stubborn refusal to listen to God’s word. In fact, the people’s stubborn refusal to listen has led to the point where they cannot listen; that is, they are now incapable of hearing. Their ears are closed, they cannot listen is translated by Good News Translation as “They are stubborn and refuse to listen to your message.” Many languages will require an object after listen (see Good News Translation). Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch translates “Their ears are closed tight, they can hear nothing.” Translators who want to keep the image of the text can say something like “Their ears are not devoted [or, dedicated] to you, and they can hear nothing.”
Object of scorn translates a favorite term in the book of Jeremiah. Translators can express the fifth line as “The LORD’s word has become something they scorn” or “Now the message that comes from the LORD is just something that they treat with contempt.” In fact, they take no pleasure in it, that is, “it is not something that causes them to have joy” or “they don’t enjoy [hearing] it at all.” Good News Translation combines the last two clauses of this verse as “they laugh at what you tell me to say”; Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch has “They look upon what you want me to say to them as an insult, and they become annoyed.”
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 .