Behold, the days come, says Yahweh, that I will punish all those who are circumcised in uncircumcision: Egypt, and Judah, and Edom, and the children of Ammon, and Moab, and all that have the corners of their hair cut off, who dwell in the wilderness; for all the nations are uncircumcised, and all the house of Israel are uncircumcised in heart.
⛓ Read Jeremiah 9 forward — the whole chapter and its afterlife →Where this passage surfaces again, sorted by the strength of the link. Each kind of reuse — formal quotation, deliberate allusion, faint echo, figural pattern — carries its own mark. Follow any reference to read it in place.
Allusion4
A deliberate verbal borrowing without a citation formula.
2:25-29 the worthlessness of fleshly circumcision without obedience reflects Jer 9:25-26, 'I will punish all who are circumcised merely in the flesh... for all these nations are uncircumcised, and all the house of Israel is uncircumcised in heart' — exactly Paul's leveling of circumcised and uncircumcised by the heart criterion.
High confidenceJer 9:25-26 announces judgment on those 'circumcised yet uncircumcised' in heart, lumping circumcised Israel with the uncircumcised nations—dissolving the very distinction Paul flattens ('neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts'). The distinctive prophetic leveling of the two states is the available precedent. Coherence is high; volume conceptual, medium confidence.
Medium confidenceJeremiah's oracle that God will punish all who are "circumcised yet uncircumcised"—Israel being uncircumcised in heart—anticipates Paul's devaluing of fleshly circumcision in favor of inward transformation (vv.12-15). Volume is moderate; the prophetic relativizing of physical circumcision strongly coheres with Paul's argument.
Medium confidenceJeremiah threatens to punish those 'circumcised in the flesh' yet 'uncircumcised in heart,' leveling Israel with the nations. Paul's relativizing of fleshly circumcision and elevation of inward worship coheres with this oracle.
Medium confidence