Lord, you know all about their murderous plots against me. Don’t forgive their crimes and blot out their sins. Let them die before you. Deal with them in your anger.
Parallel translations
- WEB Yet, Yahweh, you know all their counsel against me to kill me. Don’t forgive their iniquity, neither blot out their sin from your sight; but let them be overthrown before you. Deal you with them in the time of your anger.
- KJV Yet, LORD, thou knowest all their counsel against me to slay me: forgive not their iniquity, neither blot out their sin from thy sight, but let them be overthrown before thee; deal thus with them in the time of thine anger.
- BSB But You, O LORD, know all their deadly plots against me. Do not wipe out their guilt or blot out their sin from Your sight. Let them be overthrown before You; deal with them in the time of Your anger.
- NKJV Yet, Lord, You know all their counsel Which is against me, to slay me. Provide no atonement for their iniquity, Nor blot out their sin from Your sight; But let them be overthrown before You. Deal thus with them In the time of Your anger.
- NASB But You, Lord, know All their deadly schemes against me; Do not forgive their wrongdoing Or wipe out their sin from Your sight. But may they be overthrown before You; Deal with them in the time of Your anger!
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Jeremiah, knowing God sees every murderous plot against him, asks God not to forgive but to deal with his enemies in judgment. He surrenders the matter entirely to God.
Overview
The prophet acknowledges that God knows all his enemies' counsel to kill him and pleads for them to be overthrown in the time of God's anger. This severe imprecation arises from settled, hardened rebellion that has refused repeated calls to repent. While such prayers appeal to God's justice, the gospel ultimately holds out forgiveness to all who turn to Christ, even former enemies of God.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 15
- Ps 69:22–28Let their table before them become a snare. May it become a retribution and a trap.
- Ps 35:4Let those who seek after my soul be disappointed and brought to dishonor. Let those who plot my ruin be turned back and confounded.
- Isa 2:9Man is brought low, and mankind is humbled; therefore don’t forgive them.
- Ps 109:14–15Let the iniquity of his fathers be remembered by Yahweh. Don’t let the sin of his mother be blotted out.
- Neh 4:4–5“Hear, our God; for we are despised; and turn back their reproach on their own head, give them up for a plunder in a land of captivity;
- Jer 15:15Yahweh, you know; remember me, and visit me, and avenge me of my persecutors. You are patient, so don’t take me away. Know that for your sake I have suffered reproach.
- Jer 11:18–20Yahweh gave me knowledge of it, and I knew it: then you showed me their doings.
- Ps 37:32–33The wicked watches the righteous, and seeks to kill him.
- Jer 11:23and there shall be no remnant to them: for I will bring evil on the men of Anathoth, even the year of their visitation.’”
- Ps 59:5You, Yahweh God of Armies, the God of Israel, rouse yourself to punish the nations. Show no mercy to the wicked traitors. Selah.
- Isa 10:3What will you do in the day of visitation, and in the desolation which will come from afar? To whom will you flee for help? Where will you leave your wealth?
- Luke 21:22For these are days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled.
- Jer 8:12Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? No, they were not at all ashamed, neither could they blush: therefore they shall fall among those who fall; in the time of their visitation they shall be cast down, says Yahweh.
- Rom 2:5But according to your hardness and unrepentant heart you are treasuring up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath, revelation, and of the righteous judgment of God;
- Jer 18:18Then they said, “Come, and let us devise devices against Jeremiah; for the law shall not perish from the priest, nor counsel from the wise, nor the word from the prophet. Come, and let us strike him with the tongue, and let us not give heed to any of his words.”
Themes, concepts, people & topics
Resources, by level
Commentaries & study tools
Free animated overview and word-study videos for this book.
Sermons and teaching on this passage from across YouTube.
Clear, readable, conservative exposition — the best free place to start on any passage.
Matthew Henry, Barnes, Gill, the Pulpit Commentary, Ellicott, Cambridge, and more — stacked on one page for this exact verse.
The beloved Puritan exposition of this whole book — warm, devotional, and verse by verse (free, CCEL).
Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.
Christ at the center
Against the failure of false shepherds Jeremiah promises the Righteous Branch, 'The LORD our righteousness,' and the new covenant written on the heart and sealed in the blood of Christ.
How Jeremiah 18:23 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.