In the ancient Hebrew community a person’s neighbor would be defined as a fellow Israelite. This may also be the sense in which brother is used, though translations tend to maintain the term in its more restricted sense of a blood relative. Good News Translation, Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch, and Revised English Bible have “friend … brother.”

Good News Translation renders Let everyone beware of his neighbor as “Everyone must be on guard against their friends.” Put no trust in any brother can be “and not even trust his brother” or “and even be afraid to trust his brother.”

In Hebrew there is a play on words in the expression is a supplanter. Two words of the original sound like the name “Jacob” (“be deceitful”), and one commentator paraphrases the meaning as “Every brother is a thorough Jacob.” To convey this meaning, Good News Translation translates “for all relatives are as deceitful as Jacob.” Revised English Bible has “Brother supplants brother as Jacob did.” Other translators will say something like “Men [or, Brothers] will trick their brothers out of their positions.” Accompanying the text of Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch is a footnote, indicating a play on words between “Jacob” and “deceive.” There is also a reference to Gen 25.26 in the footnote.

And every neighbor goes about as a slanderer is translated “and everyone slanders their friends” by Good News Translation. Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch, which uses a second person form throughout (“So be on guard…”), says “and your friends speak only evil of you.”

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 .