Romans 1:28

1:28 And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God, ¹  God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what should not be done. ² 

Romans 1:30

1:30 slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, contrivers of all sorts of evil, disobedient to parents,

Romans 5:10

5:10 For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, how much more, since we have been reconciled, will we be saved by his life?

Exodus 20:5

20:5 You shall not bow down to them or serve them, ³  for I, the Lord, your God, am a jealous ⁴  God, responding to ⁵  the transgression of fathers by dealing with children to the third and fourth generations ⁶  of those who reject me, ⁷ 

Exodus 20:2

20:2 “I, ⁸  the Lord, am your God, ⁹  who brought you ¹⁰  from the land of Egypt, from the house of slavery. ¹¹ 

Exodus 19:2

19:2 After they journeyed ¹²  from Rephidim, they came to the Desert of Sinai, and they camped in the desert; Israel camped there in front of the mountain. ¹³ 

Psalms 53:1

Psalm 53 ¹⁴ 

For the music director; according to the machalath style; ¹⁵  a well-written song ¹⁶  by David.

53:1 Fools say to themselves, ¹⁷  “There is no God.” ¹⁸ 

They sin and commit evil deeds; ¹⁹ 

none of them does what is right. ²⁰ 

John 7:7

7:7 The world cannot hate you, but it hates me, because I am testifying about it that its deeds are evil.

John 15:23-24

15:23 The one who hates me hates my Father too. 15:24 If I had not performed ²¹  among them the miraculous deeds ²²  that no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin. ²³  But now they have seen the deeds ²⁴  and have hated both me and my Father. ²⁵ 

Ephesians 4:18-19

4:18 They are darkened in their understanding, ²⁶  being alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardness of their hearts. 4:19 Because they are callous, they have given themselves over to indecency for the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness. ²⁷ 

Colossians 1:21

Paul’s Goal in Ministry

1:21 And you were at one time strangers and enemies in your ²⁸  minds ²⁹  as expressed through ³⁰  your evil deeds,

Colossians 1:2

1:2 to the saints, the faithful ³¹  brothers and sisters ³²  in Christ, at Colossae. Grace and peace to you ³³  from God our Father! ³⁴ 

Colossians 3:4

3:4 When Christ (who is your ³⁵  life) appears, then you too will be revealed in glory with him.

James 4:4

4:4 Adulterers, do you not know that friendship with the world means hostility toward God? ³⁶  So whoever decides to be the world’s friend makes himself God’s enemy.

James 4:1

Passions and Pride

4:1 Where do the conflicts and where ³⁷  do the quarrels among you come from? Is it not from this, ³⁸  from your passions that battle inside you? ³⁹ 

James 2:15-16

2:15 If a brother or sister ⁴⁰  is poorly clothed and lacks daily food, 2:16 and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, keep warm and eat well,” but you do not give them what the body needs, ⁴¹  what good is it?

[1:28]  ¹ tn Grk “and just as they did not approve to have God in knowledge.”

[1:28]  ² tn Grk “the things that are improper.”

[20:5]  ³ tn The combination of these two verbs customarily refers to the worship of pagan deities (e.g., Deut 17:3: 30:17; Jer 8:2; see J. J. Stamm and M. E. Andrew, The Ten Commandments in Recent Research [SBT], 86). The first verb is לאֹ־תִשְׁתַּחֲוֶה (lo’ tishtakhaveh), now to be classified as a hishtaphel imperfect from חָוָה (khavah; BDB 1005 s.v. שׁחה), “to cause oneself to be low to the ground.” It is used of the true worship of God as well. The second verb is וְלֹא תָעָבְדֵם (vÿlo’ to’ovdem). The two could be taken as a hendiadys: “you will not prostrate yourself to serve them.” In an interesting side comment U. Cassuto (Exodus, 242) offers an explanation of the spelling of the second verb: he suggests that it was spelled with the qamets khatuf vowel to show contempt for pagan worship, as if their conduct does not even warrant a correct spelling of the word “serve.” Gesenius says that the forms like this are anomalous, but he wonders if they were pointed as if the verb was a Hophal with the meaning “you shall not allow yourself to be brought to worship them” (GKC 161 §60.b). But this is unlikely.

[20:5]  ⁴ sn The word “jealous” is the same word often translated “zeal” or “zealous.” The word describes a passionate intensity to protect or defend something that is jeopardized. The word can also have the sense of “envy,” but in that case the object is out of bounds. God’s zeal or jealousy is to protect his people or his institutions or his honor. Yahweh’s honor is bound up with the life of his people.

[20:5]  ⁵ tn Verses 5 and 6 are very concise, and the word פָּקַד (paqad) is difficult to translate. Often rendered “visiting,” it might here be rendered “dealing with” in a negative sense or “punishing,” but it describes positive attention in 13:19. When used of God, it essentially means that God intervenes in the lives of people for blessing or for cursing. Some would simply translate the participle here as “punishing” the children for the sins of the fathers (cf. Lev 18:25; Isa 26:21; Jer 29:32; 36:31; Hos 1:4; Amos 3:2). That is workable, but may not say enough. The verse may indicate that those who hate Yahweh and do not keep his commandments will repeat the sins their fathers committed and suffer for them. Deut 24:16 says that individuals will die for their own sins and not their father’s sins (see also Deut 7:10 and Ezek 18). It may have more to do with patterns of sin being repeated from generation to generation; if the sin and the guilt were not fully developed in the one generation, then left unchecked they would develop and continue in the next. But it may also indicate that the effects of the sins of the fathers will be experienced in the following generations, especially in the case of Israel as a national entity (U. Cassuto, Exodus, 243). God is showing here that his ethical character is displayed in how he deals with sin and righteousness, all of which he describes as giving strong motivation for loyalty to him and for avoiding idolatry. There is a justice at work in the dealings of God that is not present in the pagan world.

[20:5]  ⁶ tn The Hebrew word for “generations” is not found in v. 5 or 6. The numbers are short for a longer expression, which is understood as part of the description of the children already mentioned (see Deut 7:9, where “generation” [דּוֹר, dor] is present and more necessary, since “children” have not been mentioned).

[20:5]  ⁷ tn This is an important qualification to the principle. The word rendered “reject” is often translated “hate” and carries with it the idea of defiantly rejecting and opposing God and his word. Such people are doomed to carry on the sins of their ancestors and bear guilt with them.

[20:2]  ⁸ sn The revelation of Yahweh here begins with the personal pronoun. “I” – a person, a living personality, not an object or a mere thought. This enabled him to address “you” – Israel, and all his people, making the binding stipulations for them to conform to his will (B. Jacob, Exodus, 544).

[20:2]  ⁹ tn Most English translations have “I am Yahweh your God.” But the preceding chapters have again and again demonstrated how he made himself known to them. Now, the emphasis is on “I am your God” – and what that would mean in their lives.

[20:2]  ¹⁰ tn The suffix on the verb is second masculine singular. It is this person that will be used throughout the commandments for the whole nation. God addresses them all as his people, but he addresses them individually for their obedience. The masculine form is not, thereby, intended to exclude women.

[20:2]  ¹¹ tn Heb “the house of slaves” meaning “the land of slavery.”

[19:2]  ¹² tn The form is a preterite with vav (ו) consecutive, “and they journeyed.” It is here subordinated to the next clause as a temporal clause. But since the action of this temporal clause preceded the actions recorded in v. 1, a translation of “after” will keep the sequence in order. Verse 2 adds details to the summary in v. 1.

[19:2]  ¹³ sn The mountain is Mount Sinai, the mountain of God, the place where God had met and called Moses and had promised that they would be here to worship him. If this mountain is Jebel Musa, the traditional site of Sinai, then the plain in front of it would be Er-Rahah, about a mile and a half long by half a mile wide, fronting the mountain on the NW side (S. R. Driver, Exodus, 169). The plain itself is about 5000 feet above sea level. A mountain on the west side of the Arabian Peninsula has also been suggested as a possible site.

[53:1]  ¹⁴ sn Psalm 53. This psalm is very similar to Ps 14. The major difference comes in v. 5, which corresponds to, but differs quite a bit from, Ps 14:5-6, and in the use of the divine name. Ps 14 uses “the Lord” (יְהוָה, yÿhvah, “Yahweh”) in vv. 2a, 4, 6, and 7, while Ps 53 employs “God” (אֱלֹהִים, ’elohim) throughout, as one might expect in Pss 42-83, where the name “Yahweh” is relatively infrequent. The psalmist observes that the human race is morally corrupt. Evildoers oppress God’s people, but the psalmist is confident of God’s protection and anticipates a day when God will vindicate Israel.

[53:1]  ¹⁵ tn The meaning of the Hebrew term מָחֲלַת (makhalat, “machalath”) is uncertain; perhaps it refers to a particular style of music, a tune title, or a musical instrument. The term also appears in the heading of Ps 88.

[53:1]  ¹⁶ tn The meaning of the Hebrew term מַשְׂכִּיל (maskil) is uncertain. See the note on the phrase “well-written song” in the superscription of Ps 52.

[53:1]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “a fool says in his heart.” The singular is used here in a collective or representative sense; the typical fool is envisioned.

[53:1]  ¹⁸ sn There is no God. This statement is probably not a philosophical assertion that God does not exist, but rather a confident affirmation that he is unconcerned about how men live morally and ethically (see Ps 10:4, 11).

[53:1]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “they act corruptly, they do evil [with] injustice.” Ps 14:1 has עֲלִילָה (’alilah, “a deed”) instead of עָוֶל (’aval, “injustice”). The verbs describe the typical behavior of the wicked. The subject of the plural verbs is “sons of man” (v. 2). The entire human race is characterized by sinful behavior. This practical atheism – living as if there is no God who will hold them accountable for their actions – makes them fools, for one of the earmarks of folly is to fail to anticipate the long range consequences of one’s behavior.

[53:1]  ²⁰ tn Heb “there is none that does good.”

[15:24]  ²¹ tn Or “If I had not done.”

[15:24]  ²² tn Grk “the works.”

[15:24]  ²³ tn Grk “they would not have sin” (an idiom).

[15:24]  ²⁴ tn The words “the deeds” are supplied to clarify from context what was seen. Direct objects in Greek were often omitted when clear from the context.

[15:24]  ²⁵ tn Or “But now they have both seen and hated both me and my Father.” It is possible to understand both the “seeing” and the “hating” to refer to both Jesus and the Father, but this has the world “seeing” the Father, which seems alien to the Johannine Jesus. (Some point out John 14:9 as an example, but this is addressed to the disciples, not to the world.) It is more likely that the “seeing” refers to the miraculous deeds mentioned in the first half of the verse. Such an understanding of the first “both – and” construction is apparently supported by BDF §444.3.

[4:18]  ²⁶ tn In the Greek text this clause is actually subordinate to περιπατεῖ (peripatei) in v. 17. It was broken up in the English translation so as to avoid an unnecessarily long and cumbersome statement.

[4:19]  ²⁷ sn Greediness refers to an increasing desire for more and more. The point is that sinful passions and desires are never satisfied.

[1:21]  ²⁸ tn The article τῇ (th) has been translated as a possessive pronoun (ExSyn 215).

[1:21]  ²⁹ tn Although διανοία (dianoia) is singular in Greek, the previous plural noun ἐχθρούς (ecqrous) indicates that all those from Colossae are in view here.

[1:21]  ³⁰ tn The dative ἐν τοῖς ἔργοις τοῖς πονηροῖς (en toi" ergoi" toi" ponhroi") is taken as means, indicating the avenue through which hostility in the mind is revealed and made known.

[1:2]  ³¹ tn Grk “and faithful.” The construction in Greek (as well as Paul’s style) suggests that the saints are identical to the faithful; hence, the καί (kai) is best left untranslated (cf. Eph 1:1). See ExSyn 281-82.

[1:2]  ³² tn Grk “brothers,” but the Greek word may be used for “brothers and sisters” or “fellow Christians” as here (cf. BDAG 18 s.v. ἀδελφός 1, where considerable nonbiblical evidence for the plural ἀδελφοί [adelfoi] meaning “brothers and sisters” is cited).

[1:2]  ³³ tn Or “Grace to you and peace.”

[1:2]  ³⁴ tc Most witnesses, including some important ones (א A C F G I [P] 075 Ï it bo), read “and the Lord Jesus Christ” at the end of this verse, no doubt to conform the wording to the typical Pauline salutation. However, excellent and early witnesses (B D K L Ψ 33 81 1175 1505 1739 1881 al sa) lack this phrase. Since the omission is inexplicable as arising from the longer reading (otherwise, these mss would surely have deleted the phrase in the rest of the corpus Paulinum), it is surely authentic.

[3:4]  ³⁵ tc Certain mss (B^[*^] D¹ H 0278 1739 Ï sy sa) read ἡμῶν (Jhmwn, “our”), while others (Ì⁴⁶ א C D* F G P Ψ 075 33 81 1881 al latt bo) read ὑμῶν (Jumwn, “your”). Internally, it is possible that the second person pronoun arose through scribal conformity to the second person pronoun used previously in v. 3 (i.e., ὑμῶν) and following in v. 4 (ὑμεῖς, Jumeis). But in terms of external criteria, the second person pronoun has superior ms support (though there is an Alexandrian split) and ἡμῶν may have arisen through accident (error of sight) or scribal attempt to universalize the statement since all Christians have Jesus as their life. See TCGNT 557.

[4:4]  ³⁶ tn Grk “is hostility toward God.”

[4:1]  ³⁷ tn The word “where” is repeated in Greek for emphasis.

[4:1]  ³⁸ tn Grk “from here.”

[4:1]  ³⁹ tn Grk “in your members [i.e., parts of the body].”

[2:15]  ⁴⁰ tn It is important to note that the words ἀδελφός (adelfos) and ἀδελφή (adelfh) both occur in the Greek text at this point, confirming that the author intended to refer to both men and women. See the note on “someone” in 2:2.

[2:16]  ⁴¹ tn Grk “what is necessary for the body.”