Moreover thou shalt say unto them, Thus saith the LORD; Shall they fall, and not arise? shall he turn away, and not return?
Parallel translations
- WEB “Moreover you shall tell them, ‘Yahweh says: “‘Shall men fall, and not rise up again? Shall one turn away, and not return?
- BSB So you are to tell them this is what the LORD says: “Do men fall and not get up again? Does one turn away and not return?
- NKJV “Moreover you shall say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord: “Will they fall and not rise? Will one turn away and not return?
- NASB “You shall say to them, ‘This is what the Lord says: “Do people fall and not get up? Does one turn away and not repent?
- NLT “Jeremiah, say to the people, ‘This is what the Lord says: “‘When people fall down, don’t they get up again? When they discover they’re on the wrong road, don’t they turn back?
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
God asks why Judah, unlike a person who naturally gets up after falling, refuses to turn back after sinning. It exposes the unnaturalness of persistent rebellion.
Overview
Through a rhetorical question Yahweh appeals to common sense: people who fall normally rise, and those who wander normally come home. Judah's refusal to return to God is therefore against the grain of reason and nature itself. The verse frames sin not as an inevitable trap but as a stubborn choice, setting up the call to repentance that the gospel ultimately answers in Christ, who alone restores the fallen.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 15
- Prov 24:16For a just man falleth seven times, and riseth up again: but the wicked shall fall into mischief.
- Mic 7:8Rejoice not against me, O mine enemy: when I fall, I shall arise; when I sit in darkness, the LORD shall be a light unto me.
- Hos 6:1Come, and let us return unto the LORD: for he hath torn, and he will heal us; he hath smitten, and he will bind us up.
- Isa 55:7Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the LORD, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.
- Jer 3:1They say, If a man put away his wife, and she go from him, and become another man’s, shall he return unto her again? shall not that land be greatly polluted? but thou hast played the harlot with many lovers; yet return again to me, saith the LORD.
- Hos 14:1O Israel, return unto the LORD thy God; for thou hast fallen by thine iniquity.
- Ezek 18:23Have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should die? saith the Lord GOD: and not that he should return from his ways, and live?
- Hos 7:10And the pride of Israel testifieth to his face: and they do not return to the LORD their God, nor seek him for all this.
- Amos 5:2The virgin of Israel is fallen; she shall no more rise: she is forsaken upon her land; there is none to raise her up.
- Jer 23:14I have seen also in the prophets of Jerusalem an horrible thing: they commit adultery, and walk in lies: they strengthen also the hands of evildoers, that none doth return from his wickedness: they are all of them unto me as Sodom, and the inhabitants thereof as Gomorrah.
- Isa 44:22I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, thy transgressions, and, as a cloud, thy sins: return unto me; for I have redeemed thee.
- 1 Kgs 8:38What prayer and supplication soever be made by any man, or by all thy people Israel, which shall know every man the plague of his own heart, and spread forth his hands toward this house:
- Jer 36:3It may be that the house of Judah will hear all the evil which I purpose to do unto them; that they may return every man from his evil way; that I may forgive their iniquity and their sin.
- Jer 3:22Return, ye backsliding children, and I will heal your backslidings. Behold, we come unto thee; for thou art the LORD our God.
- Jer 4:1If thou wilt return, O Israel, saith the LORD, return unto me: and if thou wilt put away thine abominations out of my sight, then shalt thou not remove.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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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 8:4 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.