2 Chronicles 19:2

19:2 the prophet ¹  Jehu son of Hanani confronted him; ²  he said to King Jehoshaphat, “Is it right to help the wicked and be an ally of those who oppose the Lord? ³  Because you have done this the Lord is angry with you! ⁴ 

Nehemiah 6:13

6:13 He had been hired to scare me so that I would do this and thereby sin. They would thus bring reproach on me and I ⁵  would be discredited. ⁶ 

Nehemiah 13:26

13:26 Was it not because of things like these that King Solomon of Israel sinned? Among the many nations there was no king like him. He was loved by his God, and God made ⁷  him king over all Israel. But the foreign wives made even him sin!

Matthew 5:13-16

Salt and Light

5:13 “You are the salt ⁸  of the earth. But if salt loses its flavor, ⁹  how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled on by people. 5:14 You are the light of the world. A city located on a hill cannot be hidden. 5:15 People ¹⁰  do not light a lamp and put it under a basket ¹¹  but on a lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. 5:16 In the same way, let your light shine before people, so that they can see your good deeds and give honor to your Father in heaven.

Galatians 2:12-14

2:12 Until ¹²  certain people came from James, he had been eating with the Gentiles. But when they arrived, he stopped doing this ¹³  and separated himself ¹⁴  because he was afraid of those who were pro-circumcision. ¹⁵  2:13 And the rest of the Jews also joined with him in this hypocrisy, so that even Barnabas was led astray with them ¹⁶  by their hypocrisy. 2:14 But when I saw that they were not behaving consistently with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas ¹⁷  in front of them all, “If you, although you are a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you try to force ¹⁸  the Gentiles to live like Jews?”

¹ tn Or “seer.”

² tn Heb “went out to his face.”

³ tn Heb “and love those who hate the Lord?”

⁴ tn Heb “and because of this upon you is anger from before the Lord.”

⁵ tc The translation reads לִי (li, “to me”) rather than the MT reading לָהֶם (lahem, “to them”).

⁶ tn Heb “would have a bad name.”

⁷ tn Heb “gave.”

⁸ sn Salt was used as seasoning or fertilizer (BDAG 41 s.v. ἅλας a), or as a preservative. If salt ceased to be useful, it was thrown away. With this illustration Jesus warned about a disciple who ceased to follow him.

⁹ sn The difficulty of this saying is understanding how salt could lose its flavor since its chemical properties cannot change. It is thus often assumed that Jesus was referring to chemically impure salt, perhaps a natural salt which, when exposed to the elements, had all the genuine salt leached out, leaving only the sediment or impurities behind. Others have suggested that the background of the saying is the use of salt blocks by Arab bakers to line the floor of their ovens; under the intense heat these blocks would eventually crystallize and undergo a change in chemical composition, finally being thrown out as unserviceable. A saying in the Talmud (b. Bekhorot 8b) attributed to R. Joshua ben Chananja (ca. a.d. 90), when asked the question “When salt loses its flavor, how can it be made salty again?” is said to have replied, “By salting it with the afterbirth of a mule.” He was then asked, “Then does the mule (being sterile) bear young?” to which he replied: “Can salt lose its flavor?” The point appears to be that both are impossible. The saying, while admittedly late, suggests that culturally the loss of flavor by salt was regarded as an impossibility. Genuine salt can never lose its flavor. In this case the saying by Jesus here may be similar to Matt 19:24, where it is likewise impossible for the camel to go through the eye of a sewing needle.

¹⁰ tn Grk “Nor do they light.” The plural in Greek is indefinite, referring to people in general.

¹¹ tn Or “a bowl”; this refers to any container for dry material of about eight liters (two gallons) capacity. It could be translated “basket, box, bowl” (L&N 6.151).

¹² tn The conjunction γάρ has not been translated here.

¹³ tn Grk “he drew back.” If ἑαυτόν (Jeauton) goes with both ὑπέστελλεν (Jupestellen) and ἀφώριζεν (afwrizen) rather than only the latter, the meaning would be “he drew himself back” (see BDAG 1041 s.v. ὑποστέλλω 1.a).

¹⁴ tn Or “and held himself aloof.”

¹⁵ tn Grk “the [ones] of the circumcision,” that is, the group of Jewish Christians who insisted on circumcision of Gentiles before they could become Christians.

¹⁶ tn The words “with them” are a reflection of the σύν- (sun-) prefix on the verb συναπήχθη (sunaphcqh; see L&N 31.76).

¹⁷ sn Cephas. This individual is generally identified with the Apostle Peter (L&N 93.211).

¹⁸ tn Here ἀναγκάζεις (anankazei") has been translated as a conative present (see ExSyn 534).