Genesis 6:5

6:5 But the Lord saw ¹  that the wickedness of humankind had become great on the earth. Every inclination ²  of the thoughts ³  of their minds ⁴  was only evil ⁵  all the time. ⁶ 

Psalms 66:18

66:18 If I had harbored sin in my heart, ⁷ 

the Lord would not have listened.

Jeremiah 4:14

4:14 “Oh people of Jerusalem, purify your hearts from evil ⁸ 

so that you may yet be delivered.

How long will you continue to harbor up

wicked schemes within you?

Zechariah 8:17

8:17 Do not plan evil in your hearts against one another. Do not favor a false oath – these are all things that I hate,’ says the Lord.”

Matthew 15:18-19

15:18 But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and these things defile a person. 15:19 For out of the heart come evil ideas, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander.

Matthew 23:25-26

23:25 “Woe to you, experts in the law ⁹  and you Pharisees, hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and the dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. 23:26 Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup, ¹⁰  so that the outside may become clean too!

Mark 7:21

7:21 For from within, out of the human heart, come evil ideas, sexual immorality, theft, murder,

Mark 7:23

7:23 All these evils come from within and defile a person.”

Luke 11:39-40

11:39 But the Lord said to him, “Now you Pharisees clean ¹¹  the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness. ¹²  11:40 You fools! ¹³  Didn’t the one who made the outside make the inside as well? ¹⁴ 

Acts 8:21-22

8:21 You have no share or part ¹⁵  in this matter ¹⁶  because your heart is not right before God! 8:22 Therefore repent of this wickedness of yours, and pray to the Lord ¹⁷  that he may perhaps forgive you for the intent of your heart. ¹⁸ 

James 1:15

1:15 Then when desire conceives, it gives birth to sin, and when sin is full grown, it gives birth to death.

[6:5]  ¹ sn The Hebrew verb translated “saw” (רָאָה, ra’ah), used here of God’s evaluation of humankind’s evil deeds, contrasts with God’s evaluation of creative work in Gen 1, when he observed that everything was good.

[6:5]  ² tn The noun יֵצֶר (yetser) is related to the verb יָצָר (yatsar, “to form, to fashion [with a design]”). Here it refers to human plans or intentions (see Gen 8:21; 1 Chr 28:9; 29:18). People had taken their God-given capacities and used them to devise evil. The word יֵצֶר (yetser) became a significant theological term in Rabbinic literature for what might be called the sin nature – the evil inclination (see also R. E. Murphy, “Yeser in the Qumran Literature,” Bib 39 [1958]: 334-44).

[6:5]  ³ tn The related verb הָשָׁב (hashav) means “to think, to devise, to reckon.” The noun (here) refers to thoughts or considerations.

[6:5]  ⁴ tn Heb “his heart” (referring to collective “humankind”). The Hebrew term לֵב (lev, “heart”) frequently refers to the seat of one’s thoughts (see BDB 524 s.v. לֵב). In contemporary English this is typically referred to as the “mind.”

[6:5]  ⁵ sn Every inclination of the thoughts of their minds was only evil. There is hardly a stronger statement of the wickedness of the human race than this. Here is the result of falling into the “knowledge of good and evil”: Evil becomes dominant, and the good is ruined by the evil.

[6:5]  ⁶ tn Heb “all the day.”

[66:18]  ⁷ tn Heb “sin if I had seen in my heart.”

[4:14]  ⁸ tn Heb “Oh, Jerusalem, wash your heart from evil.”

[23:25]  ⁹ tn Or “scribes.” See the note on the phrase “experts in the law” in 2:4.

[23:26]  ¹⁰ tc A very difficult textual problem is found here. The most important Alexandrian and Byzantine, as well as significant Western, witnesses (א B C L W 0102 0281 ˹³ 33 Ï lat co) have “and the dish” (καὶ τῆς παροψίδος, kai th" paroyido") after “cup,” while few important witnesses (D Θ Ë¹ 700 and some versional and patristic authorities) omit the phrase. On the one hand, scribes sometimes tended to eliminate redundancy; since “and the dish” is already present in v. 25, it may have been deleted in v. 26 by well-meaning scribes. On the other hand, as B. M. Metzger notes, the singular pronoun αὐτοῦ (autou, “its”) with τὸ ἐκτός (to ekto", “the outside”) in some of the same witnesses that have the longer reading (viz., B* ˹³ al) hints that their archetype lacked the words (TCGNT 50). Further, scribes would be motivated both to add the phrase from v. 25 and to change αὐτοῦ to the plural pronoun αὐτῶν (aujtwn, “their”). Although the external evidence for the shorter reading is not compelling in itself, combined with these two prongs of internal evidence, it is to be slightly preferred.

[11:39]  ¹¹ sn The allusion to washing (clean the outside of the cup) shows Jesus knew what they were thinking and deliberately set up a contrast that charged them with hypocrisy and majoring on minors.

[11:39]  ¹² tn Or “and evil.”

[11:40]  ¹³ sn You fools is a rebuke which in the OT refers to someone who is blind to God (Ps 14:1, 53:1; 92:6; Prov 6:12).

[11:40]  ¹⁴ tn The question includes a Greek particle, οὐ (ou), that expects a positive reply. God, the maker of both, is concerned for what is both inside and outside.

[8:21]  ¹⁵ tn The translation “share or part” is given by L&N 63.13.

[8:21]  ¹⁶ tn Since the semantic range for λόγος (logos) is so broad, a number of different translations could be given for the prepositional phrase here. Something along the lines of “in this thing” would work well, but is too colloquial for the present translation.

[8:22]  ¹⁷ tn Or “and implore the Lord.”

[8:22]  ¹⁸ tn Grk “that if possible the intent of your heart may be forgiven you.” The passive construction is somewhat awkward in contemporary English and has thus been converted to an active construction in the translation.