1 Samuel 2:29

2:29 Why are you ¹  scorning my sacrifice and my offering that I commanded for my dwelling place? ²  You have honored your sons more than you have me by having made yourselves fat from the best parts of all the offerings of my people Israel.’

Psalms 24:4

24:4 The one whose deeds are blameless

and whose motives are pure, ³ 

who does not lie, ⁴ 

or make promises with no intention of keeping them. ⁵ 

Psalms 25:1

Psalm 25 ⁶ 

By David.

25:1 O Lord, I come before you in prayer. ⁷ 

Isaiah 56:11

56:11 The dogs have big appetites;

they are never full. ⁸ 

They are shepherds who have no understanding;

they all go their own way,

each one looking for monetary gain. ⁹ 

Ezekiel 14:3

14:3 “Son of man, these men have erected their idols in their hearts and placed the obstacle leading to their iniquity ¹⁰  right before their faces. Should I really allow them to seek ¹¹  me?

Ezekiel 14:7

14:7 For when anyone from the house of Israel, or the foreigner who lives in Israel, separates himself from me and erects his idols in his heart and sets the obstacle leading to his iniquity before his face, and then consults a prophet to seek something from me, I the Lord am determined to answer him personally.

Micah 3:11

3:11 Her ¹²  leaders take bribes when they decide legal cases, ¹³ 

her priests proclaim rulings for profit,

and her prophets read omens for pay.

Yet they claim to trust ¹⁴  the Lord and say,

“The Lord is among us. ¹⁵ 

Disaster will not overtake ¹⁶  us!”

Malachi 1:10

1:10 “I wish that one of you would close the temple doors, ¹⁷  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.

Romans 16:18

16:18 For these are the kind who do not serve our Lord Christ, but their own appetites. By their smooth talk and flattery they deceive the minds ¹⁸  of the naive.

Titus 1:11

1:11 who must be silenced because they mislead whole families by teaching for dishonest gain what ought not to be taught.

Titus 1:2

1:2 in hope of eternal life, which God, who does not lie, promised before the ages began. ¹⁹ 

Titus 2:3

2:3 Older women likewise are to exhibit behavior fitting for those who are holy, not slandering, not slaves to excessive drinking, but teaching what is good.

¹ tc The MT has a plural “you” here, but the LXX and a Qumran ms have the singular. The singular may be the correct reading; the verb “you have honored” later in the verse is singular even in the MT. However, it is more probable that the Lord here refers to Eli and his sons. Note the plural in the second half of the verse (“you have made yourselves fat”).

² tn Heb “which I commanded, dwelling place.” The noun is functioning as an adverbial accusative in relation to the verb. Since God’s dwelling place/sanctuary is in view, the pronoun “my” is supplied in the translation.

³ tn Heb “the innocent of hands and the pure of heart.” The “hands” allude to one’s actions, the “heart” to one’s thought life and motives.

⁴ tn Heb “who does not lift up for emptiness my life.” The first person pronoun on נַפְשִׁי (nafshiy, “my life”) makes little sense here; many medieval Hebrew mss support the ancient versions in reading a third person pronoun “his.” The idiom “lift the life” here means to “long for” or “desire strongly.” In this context (note the reference to an oath in the following line) “emptiness” probably refers to speech (see Ps 12:2).

⁵ tn Heb “and does not swear an oath deceitfully.”

⁶ sn Psalm 25. The psalmist asks for divine protection, guidance and forgiveness as he affirms his loyalty to and trust in the Lord. This psalm is an acrostic; every verse begins with a successive letter of the Hebrew alphabet, except for v. 18, which, like v. 19, begins with ר (resh) instead of the expected ק (qof). The final verse, which begins with פ (pe), stands outside the acrostic scheme.

⁷ tn Heb “to you, O Lord, my life I lift up.” To “lift up” one’s “life” to the Lord means to express one’s trust in him through prayer. See Pss 86:4; 143:8.

⁸ sn The phrase never full alludes to the greed of the leaders.

⁹ tn Heb “for his gain from his end.”

¹⁰ tn Heb “the stumbling block of their iniquity.” This phrase is unique to the prophet Ezekiel.

¹¹ tn Or “I will not reveal myself to them.” The Hebrew word is used in a technical sense here of seeking an oracle from a prophet (2 Kgs 1:16; 3:11; 8:8).

¹² sn The pronoun Her refers to Jerusalem (note the previous line).

¹³ tn Heb “judge for a bribe.”

¹⁴ tn Heb “they lean upon” (so KJV, NIV, NRSV); NAB “rely on.”

¹⁵ tn Heb “Is not the Lord in our midst?” The rhetorical question expects the answer, “Of course he is!”

¹⁶ tn Or “come upon” (so many English versions); NCV “happen to us”; CEV “come to us.”

¹⁷ 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.

¹⁸ tn Grk “hearts.”

¹⁹ tn Grk “before eternal ages.”