An alien was a foreigner who had settled among the people of Israel. Through the bond of hospitality he had certain rights and obligations, but he did not share in the full benefits of a native-born individual. Thus there were situations where a native-born citizen of the country might take advantage of an alien. Alien is generally translated as “foreigner” or “foreigner in your land.” And since oppress means to put down by a misuse of power, some translations have “harm the foreigners among you by unfair use of power” or even “treat unfairly the foreigners in your land.” The fatherless (Good News Translation “orphans”) and the widow were also persons who could easily be taken advantage of, and from all indications this was frequently the case. For fatherless see 5.28.

It is sometimes helpful to put all the terms for these oppressed groups in the plural: “those people living among you who are from other countries, those who are orphans or widows.”

To shed innocent blood is a typical Old Testament expression meaning “kill innocent people” (Good News Translation, Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch).

As in verse 3, Good News Translation understands in this place to refer to the land.

Go after is used in the sense of “worshiping” (Good News Translation). Both Revised English Bible and Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch have “run after,” which reflects something of the sarcasm in Jeremiah’s remark.

Other gods are best understood as “foreign gods” (Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch). See 1.16.

To your own hurt (New American Bible “to your own harm”) is translated as a clause by Good News Translation (“for that will destroy you”) and Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch (“because in that way you will hurl yourself into disaster”). This phrase interrupts the flow of the argument; in a sense it is parenthetical, and translators sometimes set it off, as in “… and if you do not run after other gods, by which in any case you will only destroy yourselves, then….”

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 .