Jeremiah 15:12

Easy-to-Read Version

"Jeremiah, you know that no one can shatter a piece of iron. I mean the kind of iron that is from the north. And no one can shatter a piece of bronze either.

Parallel Translations

Christian Standard Bible®
Can anyone smash iron,iron from the north, or bronze?

Hebrew Names Version
Can one break iron, even iron from the north, and brass?

King James Version
Shall iron break the northern iron and the steel?

English Standard Version
Can one break iron, iron from the north, and bronze?

New American Standard Bible
"Can anyone smash iron, Iron from the north, or bronze?

New Century Version
No one can smash a piece of iron or bronze that comes from the north.

Amplified Bible
"Can anyone crush iron, The iron from the north, or bronze?

World English Bible
Can one break iron, even iron from the north, and brass?

Geneva Bible (1587)
Shall the yron breake the yron, and the brasse that commeth from the North?

Legacy Standard Bible
"Can anyone smash iron,Iron from the north, or bronze?

Berean Standard Bible
Can anyone smash iron-iron from the north-or bronze?

Contemporary English Version
The Lord told me to say: People of Judah, just as you can't break iron mixed with bronze, you can't defeat the enemies that will attack from the north.

Complete Jewish Bible
"Can iron break iron and bronze from the north?

Darby Translation
Will iron break? iron from the north? and bronze?

George Lamsa Translation
For he is hard as iron and as brass.

Good News Translation
(No one can break iron, especially the iron from the north that is mixed with bronze.)

Lexham English Bible
Can anyone break iron, iron from the north, or bronze?

Literal Translation
Can one break iron, iron or bronze from the north?

Miles Coverdale Bible (1535)
Doth one yron hurte another, or one metall that cometh from the north, another?

American Standard Version
Can one break iron, even iron from the north, and brass?

Bible in Basic English
Is it possible for iron to be broken; even iron from the north, and brass?

JPS Old Testament (1917)
Can iron break iron from the north and brass?

King James Version (1611)
Shall yron breake the Northren yron, and the steele?

Bishop's Bible (1568)
Doth one iron hurt another? or one metall that commeth from the north another?

Brenton's Septuagint (LXX)
Will iron be known? whereas thy strength is a brazen covering.

English Revised Version
Can one break iron, even iron from the north, and brass?

Wycliffe Bible (1395)
Whether yrun and metal schal be ioyned bi pees to irun fro the north?

Update Bible Version
Can one break iron, even iron from the north, and bronze?

Webster's Bible Translation
Shall iron break the northern iron and the steel?

New English Translation
Can you people who are like iron and bronze break that iron fist from the north?

New King James Version
Can anyone break iron, The northern iron and the bronze?

New Living Translation
Can a man break a bar of iron from the north, or a bar of bronze?

New Life Bible
"Can anyone crush iron, iron from the north, or brass?

New Revised Standard
Can iron and bronze break iron from the north?

J.B. Rotherham Emphasized Bible
Shall iron crush the iron from the North and the bronze?

Douay-Rheims Bible
Shall iron be allied with the iron from the north, and the brass?

Revised Standard Version
Can one break iron, iron from the north, and bronze?

Young's Literal Translation
Doth one break iron -- northern iron, and brass?

THE MESSAGE
"O Israel, O Judah, what are your chances against the iron juggernaut from the north? In punishment for your sins, I'm giving away everything you've got, giving it away for nothing. I'll make you slaves to your enemies in a strange and far-off land. My anger is blazing and fierce, burning in hot judgment against you."

New American Standard Bible (1995)
"Can anyone smash iron, Iron from the north, or bronze?

Contextual Overview

¹⁰ Mother, I am sorry that you gave birth to me. I am the one who must accuse and criticize the whole land. I have not loaned or borrowed anything, but everyone curses me. ¹¹ Surely, Lord , I have served you well. In times of disaster and trouble, I prayed to you about my enemies. ¹² "Jeremiah, you know that no one can shatter a piece of iron. I mean the kind of iron that is from the north. And no one can shatter a piece of bronze either. ¹³ The people of Judah have many treasures. I will give these riches to other people. They will not have to buy them, because Judah has many sins. The people sinned in every part of Judah. ¹⁴ People of Judah, I will make you slaves of your enemies. You will be slaves in a land that you never knew. I am very angry. My anger is like a hot fire, and you will be burned."

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

Shall iron: Jeremiah 1:18, Jeremiah 1:19, Jeremiah 21:4, Jeremiah 21:5, Job 40:9, Isaiah 45:9, Habakkuk 1:5-10

Reciprocal: Daniel 2:40 - forasmuch 1 John 5:15 - if

Cross-References

Genesis 2:21
So the Lord God caused the man to sleep very deeply. While he was asleep, God took one of the ribs from the man's body. Then he closed the man's skin where the rib had been.

Genesis 15:3
Abram said, "You have given me no son, so a slave born in my house will get everything I have."

Genesis 15:5
Then God led Abram outside and said, "Look at the sky. See the many stars. There are so many you cannot count them. Your family will be like that."

Genesis 15:8
But Abram said, "Lord God , how can I be sure that I will get this land?"

Genesis 15:9
God said to Abram, "We will make an agreement. Bring me a three-year-old cow, a three-year-old goat, a three-year-old ram, a dove, and a young pigeon."

Genesis 15:13
Then the Lord said to Abram, "You should know this: Your descendants will live in a country that is not their own. They will be strangers there. The people there will make them slaves and be cruel to them for 400 years.

Genesis 15:14
But then I will punish the nation that made them slaves. Your people will leave that land, and they will take many good things with them.

1 Samuel 26:12
So David took the spear and water jug that were near Saul's head, and then David and Abishai left Saul's camp. No one knew what had happened. No one saw it. No one even woke up. Saul and all of his soldiers slept because the Lord had put them into a deep sleep.

Job 33:15
He may speak in a dream, or in a vision at night, when people are in a deep sleep lying in their beds.

Acts 20:9
There was a young man named Eutychus sitting in the window. Paul continued talking, and Eutychus became very, very sleepy. Finally, he went to sleep and fell out of the window. He fell to the ground from the third floor. When the people went down and lifted him up, he was dead.

Gill's Notes on the Bible

Shall iron break the northern iron and the steel?] Can iron break iron, especially that which comes from the north, which was harder than the common iron; or steel, the hardest of all? though the Jews were hard as iron, they could not prevail against and overcome Jeremiah, who was made an iron pillar and brasen walls against them, Jeremiah 1:18, and so these words are spoken for his comfort and encouragement: or they may respect the Jews and the Chaldeans; and the sense be, that the Jews, as mighty and as strong as they fancied themselves to be, and boasted that they were, they could not find themselves a match for the Chaldean army, which came out of the north; and may be said to be as hard as the northern iron, which came from the Chalybes, a people in the north, near Pontus, from whom steel has its name in the Latin tongue; and this sense agrees with what follows.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

The steel - “brass,” i. e., bronze. By the “iron” is meant Jeremiah’s intercession; but this cannot alter the divine purpose to send Judah into exile, which is firm as steel and brass. For “brass” see Exodus 25:3 note. The alloy of copper and zinc now called brass was entirely unknown to the ancients.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse Jeremiah 15:12. Shall iron break the northern iron and the steel? — Shall our weak forces be able to oppose and overcome the powers of the Chaldeans? נחשת nechasheth, which we here translate steel, property signifies brass or copper united with tin, which gives it much hardness, and enables it to bear a good edge.