Jeremiah 4:14

Bible in Basic English

O Jerusalem, make your heart clean from evil, so that you may have salvation. How long are evil purposes to have a resting-place in you?

Parallel Translations

Christian Standard Bible®
Wash the evil from your heart, Jerusalem,so that you will be delivered.How long will you harbormalicious thoughts?

Hebrew Names Version
Yerushalayim, wash your heart from wickedness, that you may be saved. How long shall your evil thoughts lodge within you?

King James Version
O Jerusalem, wash thine heart from wickedness, that thou mayest be saved. How long shall thy vain thoughts lodge within thee?

English Standard Version
O Jerusalem, wash your heart from evil, that you may be saved. How long shall your wicked thoughts lodge within you?

New American Standard Bible
Wash your heart from evil, Jerusalem, So that you may be saved. How long will your wicked thoughts Lodge within you?

New Century Version
People of Jerusalem, clean the evil from your hearts so that you can be saved. Don't continue making evil plans.

Amplified Bible
O Jerusalem, wash your heart from wickedness, That you may be saved. How long will your wicked and immoral thoughts Lodge within you?

World English Bible
Jerusalem, wash your heart from wickedness, that you may be saved. How long shall your evil thoughts lodge within you?

Geneva Bible (1587)
O Ierusalem, wash thine heart from wickednes, that thou maiest be saued: how long shall thy wicked thoughtes remaine within thee?

Legacy Standard Bible
Wash your heart from evil, O Jerusalem,That you may be saved.How long will your wicked thoughtsLodge within you?

Berean Standard Bible
Wash the evil from your heart, O Jerusalem, so that you may be saved. How long will you harbor wicked thoughts within you?

Contemporary English Version
But Jerusalem, there is still time for you to be saved. Wash the evil from your hearts and stop making sinful plans,

Complete Jewish Bible
Wash the evil from your heart, Yerushalayim, so that you can be saved. How long will you harbor within yourselves your evil thoughts?

Darby Translation
Wash thy heart, Jerusalem, from wickedness, that thou mayest be saved. How long shall thy vain thoughts lodge within thee?

Easy-to-Read Version
People of Jerusalem, wash the evil from your hearts. Make your hearts pure so that you can be saved. Don't continue making evil plans.

George Lamsa Translation
O Jerusalem, wash your heart from wickedness that you may be saved. How long shall your evil thoughts remain in you?

Good News Translation
Jerusalem, wash the evil from your heart, so that you may be saved. How long will you go on thinking sinful thoughts?

Lexham English Bible
Cleanse your heart from wickedness, O Jerusalem, so that you may be saved. How long will your thoughts of mischief dwell in your inner part?

Literal Translation
O Jerusalem, cleanse your heart from evil so that you may be saved. Until when will your vain thoughts lodge within you?

Miles Coverdale Bible (1535)
O Ierusalem, wash thine hert from wickednesse, that thou mayest be helped. How longe shal thy noysome thoughtes remayne with the?

American Standard Version
O Jerusalem, wash thy heart from wickedness, that thou mayest be saved. How long shall thine evil thoughts lodge within thee?

JPS Old Testament (1917)
O Jerusalem, wash thy heart from wickedness, that thou mayest be saved. How long shall thy baleful thoughts lodge within thee?

King James Version (1611)
O Ierusalem, wash thine heart from wickednesse, that thou mayest bee saued: how long shall thy vaine thoughts lodge within thee?

Bishop's Bible (1568)
O Hierusalem, washe thine heart from wickednesse, that thou mayest be helped: Howe long shall thy vayne thoughtes remayne with thee?

Brenton's Septuagint (LXX)
Cleanse thine heart from wickedness, O Jerusalem, that thou mayest be saved: how long will thy grievous thoughts be within thee?

English Revised Version
O Jerusalem, wash thine heart from wickedness, that thou mayest be saved. How long shall thine evil thoughts lodge within thee?

Wycliffe Bible (1395)
Thou Jerusalem, waische thin herte fro malice, that thou be maad saaf. Hou long schulen noiful thouytis dwelle in thee?

Update Bible Version
O Jerusalem, wash your heart from wickedness, that you may be saved. How long shall your evil thoughts lodge inside you?

Webster's Bible Translation
O Jerusalem, wash thy heart from wickedness, that thou mayest be saved. How long shall thy vain thoughts lodge within thee?

New English Translation
"Oh people of Jerusalem, purify your hearts from evil so that you may yet be delivered. How long will you continue to harbor up wicked schemes within you?

New King James Version
O Jerusalem, wash your heart from wickedness, That you may be saved. How long shall your evil thoughts lodge within you?

New Living Translation
O Jerusalem, cleanse your heart that you may be saved. How long will you harbor your evil thoughts?

New Life Bible
Wash your heart from sin, O Jerusalem, that you may be saved. How long will your sinful thoughts stay within you?

New Revised Standard
O Jerusalem, wash your heart clean of wickedness so that you may be saved. How long shall your evil schemes lodge within you?

J.B. Rotherham Emphasized Bible
Wash from wickedness thy heart, O Jerusalem, That thou mayest be saved, - How long, shall lodge within thee thy wicked devices?

Douay-Rheims Bible
Wash thy heart from wickedness, O Jerusalem, that thou mayst be saved: how long shall hurtful thoughts abide in thee?

Revised Standard Version
O Jerusalem, wash your heart from wickedness, that you may be saved. How long shall your evil thoughts lodge within you?

Young's Literal Translation
Wash from evil thy heart, O Jerusalem, That thou mayest be saved, Till when dost thou lodge in thy heart Thoughts of thy strength?

New American Standard Bible (1995)
Wash your heart from evil, O Jerusalem, That you may be saved. How long will your wicked thoughts Lodge within you?

Contextual Overview

⁵ Say openly in Judah, give it out in Jerusalem, and say, Let the horn be sounded in the land: crying out in a loud voice, Come together, and let us go into the walled towns. ⁶ Put up a flag for a sign to Zion: go in flight so that you may be safe, waiting no longer: for I will send evil from the north, and a great destruction. ⁷ A lion has gone up from his secret place in the woods, and one who makes waste the nations is on his way; he has gone out from his place, to make your land unpeopled, so that your towns will be made waste, with no man living in them. ⁸ For this put on haircloth, with weeping and loud crying: for the burning wrath of the Lord is not turned back from us. ⁹ And it will come about in that day, says the Lord, that the heart of the king will be dead in him, and the hearts of the rulers; and the priests will be overcome with fear, and the prophets with wonder. ¹⁰ Then said I, Ah, Lord God! your words were not true when you said to this people and to Jerusalem, You will have peace; when the sword has come even to the soul. ¹¹ At that time it will be said to this people and to Jerusalem, A burning wind from the open hilltops in the waste land is blowing on the daughter of my people, not for separating or cleaning the grain; ¹² A full wind will come for me: and now I will give my decision against them. ¹³ See, he will come up like the clouds, and his war-carriages like the storm-wind: his horses are quicker than eagles. Sorrow is ours, for destruction has come on us. ¹⁴ O Jerusalem, make your heart clean from evil, so that you may have salvation. How long are evil purposes to have a resting-place in you?

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

wash: Isaiah 1:16-19, Isaiah 55:7, Ezekiel 18:31, Matthew 12:33, Matthew 15:19, Matthew 15:20, Matthew 23:26, Matthew 23:27, Luke 11:39, James 4:8

How long: Jeremiah 13:27, Psalms 66:18, Psalms 119:113, Proverbs 1:22, Acts 8:22, Romans 1:21, 1 Corinthians 3:20

Reciprocal: Genesis 6:5 - thoughts Exodus 16:28 - General Exodus 29:17 - wash the Leviticus 1:9 - inwards Numbers 8:7 - wash their Numbers 14:11 - How long will this Deuteronomy 10:16 - Circumcise Deuteronomy 30:2 - with all thine heart 2 Chronicles 34:5 - cleansed Job 1:5 - in their hearts Job 9:30 - General Psalms 5:9 - inward Psalms 10:4 - thoughts Psalms 24:4 - pure Psalms 62:3 - How Psalms 73:1 - of a clean heart Psalms 80:7 - we shall Proverbs 6:9 - How Proverbs 6:18 - heart Proverbs 12:5 - thoughts Proverbs 15:26 - thoughts Proverbs 24:9 - thought Proverbs 30:12 - not Isaiah 10:6 - against Isaiah 65:2 - after Jeremiah 3:1 - yet return Jeremiah 4:21 - How long Jeremiah 6:8 - Be thou Jeremiah 23:26 - How Jeremiah 31:22 - How Jeremiah 35:15 - Return Hosea 8:5 - how Zechariah 8:17 - let Matthew 6:21 - there Matthew 17:17 - how long shall I be Matthew 23:37 - Jerusalem Mark 7:4 - except Mark 7:21 - out Luke 9:41 - how Luke 24:38 - and why John 13:9 - not Romans 2:29 - which 1 Corinthians 6:11 - but ye are washed 2 Corinthians 7:1 - filthiness 2 Corinthians 10:5 - every thought 1 Timothy 1:5 - a pure

Cross-References

Genesis 4:5
But in Cain and his offering he had no pleasure. And Cain was angry and his face became sad.

Genesis 4:6
And the Lord said to Cain, Why are you angry? and why is your face sad?

Genesis 4:11
And now you are cursed from the earth, whose mouth is open to take your brother's blood from your hand;

Genesis 4:12
No longer will the earth give you her fruit as the reward of your work; you will be a wanderer in flight over the earth.

Genesis 4:13
And Cain said, My punishment is greater than my strength.

Genesis 4:14
You have sent me out this day from the face of the earth and from before your face; I will be a wanderer in flight over the earth, and whoever sees me will put me to death.

Genesis 4:15
And the Lord said, Truly, if Cain is put to death, seven lives will be taken for his. And the Lord put a mark on Cain so that no one might put him to death.

Genesis 4:16
And Cain went away from before the face of the Lord, and made his living-place in the land of Nod on the east of Eden.

Genesis 4:20
And Adah gave birth to Jabal: he was the father of such as are living in tents and keep cattle.

Genesis 4:24
If seven lives are to be taken as punishment for Cain's death, seventy-seven will be taken for Lamech's.

Gill's Notes on the Bible

O Jerusalem, wash thine heart from wickedness,.... These are the words of the prophet, or of God by the prophet, showing the cause of all their ruin and destruction, the wickedness of their hearts; and they are expressed in such form and language, as to be accommodated to the case of any unregenerate sinner: every man's heart is wicked, desperately wicked, even wickedness itself; everything in it is wicked; the thoughts, and the imagination of the thoughts of the heart, the mind, the understanding, the will, the conscience, and the affections; and everything that is wicked is in that: it is the womb in which all sin is conceived; the shop and forge in which it is wrought; it is the habitation of every unclean lust; the seeds and principles of all sin are in it; it is the fountain spring and source of all evil; of all evil thoughts, words, and actions; all come out of it, and have their rise in it: and this wickedness is of a defiling nature, and has left a pollution on it; and what comes out of it defiles the man, that he stands in need of washing; which cannot be done to purpose by ceremonial ablutions and sacrifices, by moral acts of righteousness, by humiliation and tears, nor by submission to Gospel ordinances; nor indeed is this to be done by man at all, any other way than by faith dealing with the blood of Christ, by which only the heart is purified: for this is God's work, as appears from his promises to cleanse his people from all sins; from their prayers to him, to create in them clean hearts, to wash them thoroughly from their iniquity, and cleanse them from their sin; from the sanctifying grace of the Spirit, and the washing of regeneration ascribed to him; and from the end and efficacy of the bloodshed of Christ, to cleanse from sin, and purge the conscience from dead works; and the design of such exhortations as these is to convince men of the wickedness and pollution of their hearts, of the necessity of being washed from it, and of their own inability to do it of themselves; and to lead them to the fountain of Christ's blood, to wash in for sin and for uncleanness:

that thou mayest be saved; not only with a temporal salvation, which may be here primarily meant; but with a spiritual and eternal one; for without purification of the heart there is no salvation: this is the meetness for the undefiled inheritance; without the washing of regeneration, there is no seeing nor entering into the kingdom of God; and unless we are washed by Christ, and in his blood, we can have no part nor portion with him in the heavenly glory; none shall ascend the holy hill, or dwell in the holy place, but such who have clean hands, and a pure heart; without this there is no seeing of God, nor having communion with him; this is the way in which he saves men, Titus 3:5:

how long shall thy vain thoughts lodge within thee? or, "wilt thou suffer them to lodge within thee?" z if the question is of right, the answer is, they ought not to lodge one night, one hour, one moment; but if it is of fact, the answer is, they will have a place in the heart as long as we are in this tabernacle; but the words are spoken by way of complaint and reproof: the thoughts of men's hearts are vain, are taken up about vain and foolish things; and these not only pass to and fro, but have a lodging in the heart; and particularly vain are the thoughts of those who think themselves pure, and that their hearts are good, and trust in them; or that they can wash themselves from their wickedness; and that an outward reformation of life and manners is sufficient; and who think they can be saved without the washing of regeneration, and the blood of Christ. The Targum is,

"cleanse thine heart from doing evil, O Jerusalem, that ye may be saved; how long shall they endure and be stable who do violence, which is in the midst of thee?''

z עד מתי תלין "quousque morari sines", Pagninus, Montanus.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Thy vain thoughts - “Thy” iniquitous “thoughts.” “Aven,” the word used here, is especially applied to the sin of idolatry: thus Bethel is generally called Bethaven by Hosea (Hosea 4:15; Hosea 5:8, ...), because instead of being the house of God, El, it was the house of an iniquity, Aven, the golden calf.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse Jeremiah 4:14. O Jerusalem, wash thine heart — Why do ye not put away your wickedness, that ye may be saved from these tremendous judgments? How long shall thy vain thoughts of safety and prosperity lodge within thee? Whilst thou continuest a rebel against God, and provokest him daily by thy abominations!