Translations
F.O.G.MPrimary
F.O.G Messagewho say, 'Now isn't the time to build houses; this city is our cauldron and we are the choice meat inside it!'"
F.O.GSecondary
The F.O.Gwho say, 'The time to build houses has not come—this city is the cauldron and we are the flesh!'"
KJV
King James VersionWhich say, It is not near; let us build houses: this city is the caldron, and we be the flesh.
BSB
Berean Standard BibleThey are saying, ‘Is not the time near to build houses? The city is the cooking pot, and we are the meat.’
Footnotes
The leaders' boast drips with dark irony. The image of the סִיר (*sir*, cauldron or cooking-pot) was meant to convey security—they picture themselves as prime cuts, safely enclosed within Jerusalem's walls. But YHWH will seize the metaphor and invert it: the 'meat' will be dragged out of the pot (v. 7), and the real flesh filling the cauldron is the blood of the innocent they have slain. The opening clause—'the time to build houses has not come'—likely signals complacency, directly contradicting Jeremiah's counsel to the exiles (Jer. 29:5). FOG renders סִיר as 'cauldron' for its specific cooking-vessel gravity; FOG Message keeps 'cauldron' but leans into the conversational vividness of 'choice meat.'
