2:17 The sin of these young men was very great in the Lord’s sight, for they 2 treated the Lord’s offering with contempt.
28:21 To show partiality 3 is terrible, 4
for a person will transgress over the smallest piece of bread. 5
3:5 This is what the Lord says: “The prophets who mislead my people
are as good as dead. 6
If someone gives them enough to eat,
they offer an oracle of peace. 7
But if someone does not give them food,
they are ready to declare war on him. 8
3:11 Her 9 leaders take bribes when they decide legal cases, 10
her priests proclaim rulings for profit,
and her prophets read omens for pay.
Yet they claim to trust 11 the Lord and say,
“The Lord is among us. 12
Disaster will not overtake 13 us!”
1:10 “I wish that one of you would close the temple doors, 14 so that you no longer would light useless fires on my altar. I am not pleased with you,” says the Lord who rules over all, “and I will no longer accept an offering from you.
16:1 Now I commend to you our sister Phoebe, who is a servant 16 of the church in Cenchrea,
1 tc The translation follows the Qere and many medieval Hebrew
2 tc Heb “the men,” which is absent from one medieval Hebrew
3 tn The construction uses the Hiphil infinitive הַכֵּר (hakken) as the subject of the sentence: “to have respect for [or, recognize] persons is not good” (e.g., 24:23; 18:5; Deut 1:17; Lev 19:15). Such favoritism is “not good”; instead, it is a miscarriage of justice and is to be avoided.
4 tn Heb “not good.” This is a figure of speech known as tapeinosis – a deliberate understatement to emphasize a worst-case scenario: “it is terrible!”
5 tn The meaning and connection of the line is not readily clear. It could be taken in one of two ways: (1) a person can steal even a small piece of bread if hungry, and so the court should show some compassion, or it should show no partiality even in such a pathetic case; (2) a person could be bribed for a very small price (a small piece of bread being the figure representing this). This second view harmonizes best with the law.
6 tn Heb “concerning the prophets, those who mislead my people.” The first person pronominal suffix is awkward in a quotation formula that introduces the words of the
7 tn Heb “those who bite with their teeth and cry out, ‘peace.’” The phrase “bite with the teeth” is taken here as idiomatic for eating. Apparently these prophets were driven by mercenary motives. If they were paid well, they gave positive oracles to their clients, but if someone could not afford to pay them, they were hostile and delivered oracles of doom.
8 tn Heb “but [as for the one] who does not place [food] in their mouths, they prepare for war against him.”
9 sn The pronoun Her refers to Jerusalem (note the previous line).
10 tn Heb “judge for a bribe.”
11 tn Heb “they lean upon” (so KJV, NIV, NRSV); NAB “rely on.”
12 tn Heb “Is not the
13 tn Or “come upon” (so many English versions); NCV “happen to us”; CEV “come to us.”
14 sn The rhetorical language suggests that as long as the priesthood and people remain disobedient, the temple doors may as well be closed because God is not “at home” to receive them or their worship there.
15 tn Grk “hearts.”
16 tn Or “deaconess.” It is debated whether διάκονος (diakonos) here refers to a specific office within the church. One contextual argument used to support this view is that Phoebe is associated with a particular church, Cenchrea, and as such would therefore be a deacon of that church. In the NT some who are called διάκονος are related to a particular church, yet the scholarly consensus is that such individuals are not deacons, but “servants” or “ministers” (other viable translations for διάκονος). For example, Epaphras is associated with the church in Colossians and is called a διάκονος in Col 1:7, but no contemporary translation regards him as a deacon. In 1 Tim 4:6 Paul calls Timothy a διάκονος; Timothy was associated with the church in Ephesus, but he obviously was not a deacon. In addition, the lexical evidence leans away from this view: Within the NT, the διακον- word group rarely functions with a technical nuance. In any case, the evidence is not compelling either way. The view accepted in the translation above is that Phoebe was a servant of the church, not a deaconess, although this conclusion should be regarded as tentative.
17 tn Or “exult, boast.”
18 tn Or “exult, boast.”
19 tn Or “based on truth.”
20 tn Grk “do you think this,” referring to the clause in v. 3b.
21 tn Grk “O man, the one who judges.”
22 tn Grk “and do them.” The other words are supplied to bring out the contrast implied in this clause.