This verse is generally taken to reflect the custom of fasting as a sign of mourning (see 2Sam 3.35). When the time of the fast had come to an end, food and drink would apparently be brought in by friends and neighbors.

Good News Translation assumes that break bread … to comfort him has the same meaning as give him the cup of consolation, and so it puts break bread and give … the cup into the same sentence: “No one will eat or drink with anyone to comfort him….” Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch is similar in its restructuring. Translators can also restructure the verse as follows:

• No one is to offer food to people in mourning, to comfort them in their loss. Even if it is their father or mother who has died, don’t give them something to drink [or, a comforting drink].

Quoted with permission from Newman, Barclay M. and Stine, Philip C. A Handbook on Jeremiah. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2003. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .