Deuteronomy 27:26

27:26 ‘Cursed is the one who refuses to keep the words of this law.’ Then all the people will say, ‘Amen!’

Jeremiah 11:3

11:3 Tell them that the Lord, the God of Israel, says, ‘Anyone who does not keep the terms of the covenant will be under a curse. ¹ 

Ezekiel 18:4

18:4 Indeed! All lives are mine – the life of the father as well as the life of the son is mine. The one ²  who sins will die.

Romans 3:19-20

3:19 Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under ³  the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world may be held accountable to God. 3:20 For no one is declared righteous before him ⁴  by the works of the law, ⁵  for through the law comes ⁶  the knowledge of sin.

Romans 6:23

6:23 For the payoff ⁷  of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

James 2:9-11

2:9 But if you show prejudice, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as violators. ⁸  2:10 For the one who obeys the whole law but fails ⁹  in one point has become guilty of all of it. ¹⁰  2:11 For he who said, “Do not commit adultery,” ¹¹  also said, “Do not murder.” ¹²  Now if you do not commit adultery but do commit murder, you have become a violator of the law.

¹ tn Heb “Cursed is the person who does not listen to the terms of this covenant.” “This covenant” is further qualified in the following verse by a relative clause. The form of the sentence and the qualification “my” before covenant were chosen for better English idiom and to break up a long sentence which really extends to the middle of v. 5.

² tn Heb “life.”

³ tn Grk “in,” “in connection with.”

⁴ sn An allusion to Ps 143:2.

⁵ tn Grk “because by the works of the law no flesh is justified before him.” Some recent scholars have understood the phrase ἒργα νόμου (erga nomou, “works of the law”) to refer not to obedience to the Mosaic law generally, but specifically to portions of the law that pertain to things like circumcision and dietary laws which set the Jewish people apart from the other nations (e.g., J. D. G. Dunn, Romans [WBC], 1:155). Other interpreters, like C. E. B. Cranfield (“‘The Works of the Law’ in the Epistle to the Romans,” JSNT 43 [1991]: 89-101) reject this narrow interpretation for a number of reasons, among which the most important are: (1) The second half of v. 20, “for through the law comes the knowledge of sin,” is hard to explain if the phrase “works of the law” is understood in a restricted sense; (2) the plural phrase “works of the law” would have to be understood in a different sense from the singular phrase “the work of the law” in 2:15; (3) similar phrases involving the law in Romans (2:13, 14; 2:25, 26, 27; 7:25; 8:4; and 13:8) which are naturally related to the phrase “works of the law” cannot be taken to refer to circumcision (in fact, in 2:25 circumcision is explicitly contrasted with keeping the law). Those interpreters who reject the “narrow” interpretation of “works of the law” understand the phrase to refer to obedience to the Mosaic law in general.

⁶ tn Grk “is.”

⁷ tn A figurative extension of ὀψώνιον (oywnion), which refers to a soldier’s pay or wages. Here it refers to the end result of an activity, seen as something one receives back in return. In this case the activity is sin, and the translation “payoff” captures this thought. See also L&N 89.42.

⁸ tn Or “transgressors.”

⁹ tn Or “stumbles.”

¹⁰ tn Grk “guilty of all.”

¹¹ sn A quotation from Exod 20:14 and Deut 5:18.

¹² sn A quotation from Exod 20:13 and Deut 5:17.