Amos 4:11

4:11 “I overthrew some of you the way God ¹  overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. ² 

You were like a burning stick ³  snatched from the flames.

Still you did not come back to me.”

The Lord is speaking!

Romans 11:4-5

11:4 But what was the divine response ⁴  to him? “I have kept for myself seven thousand people ⁵  who have not bent the knee to Baal.” ⁶ 

11:5 So in the same way at the present time there is a remnant chosen by grace.

Jude 1:23

1:23 save ⁷  others by snatching them out of the fire; have mercy ⁸  on others, coupled with a fear of God, ⁹  hating even the clothes stained ¹⁰  by the flesh. ¹¹ 

¹ tn Several English versions substitute the first person pronoun (“I”) here for stylistic reasons (e.g., NIV, NCV, TEV, CEV, NLT).

² tn Heb “like God’s overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah.” The divine name may be used in an idiomatic superlative sense here, in which case one might translate, “like the great [or “disastrous”] overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah.”

³ tn Heb “like that which is burning.”

⁴ tn Grk “the revelation,” “the oracle.”

⁵ tn The Greek term here is ἀνήρ (anhr), which only exceptionally is used in a generic sense of both males and females. In this context, it appears to be a generic usage (“people”) since when Paul speaks of a remnant of faithful Israelites (“the elect,” v. 7), he is not referring to males only. It can also be argued, however, that it refers only to adult males here (“men”), perhaps as representative of all the faithful left in Israel.

⁶ sn A quotation from 1 Kgs 19:18.

⁷ tn Grk “and save.”

⁸ tn Grk “and have mercy.”

⁹ tn Grk “with fear.” But as this contrasts with ἀφόβως (afobw") in v. 12 (without reverence), the posture of the false teachers, it most likely refers to reverence for God.

¹⁰ sn The imagery here suggests that the things close to the sinners are contaminated by them, presumably during the process of sinning.

¹¹ tn Grk “hating even the tunic spotted by the flesh.” The “flesh” in this instance could refer to the body or to the sin nature. It makes little difference in one sense: Jude is thinking primarily of sexual sins, which are borne of the sin nature and manifest themselves in inappropriate deeds done with the body. At the same time, he is not saying that the body is intrinsically bad, a view held by the opponents of Christianity. Hence, it is best to see “flesh” as referring to the sin nature here and the language as metaphorical.