Deuteronomy 31:16-17

31:16 Then the Lord said to Moses, “You are about to die, ¹  and then these people will begin to prostitute themselves with the foreign gods of the land into which they ²  are going. They ³  will reject ⁴  me and break my covenant that I have made with them. ⁵  31:17 At that time ⁶  my anger will erupt against them ⁷  and I will abandon them and hide my face from them until they are devoured. Many disasters and distresses will overcome ⁸  them ⁹  so that they ¹⁰  will say at that time, ‘Have not these disasters ¹¹  overcome us ¹²  because our ¹³  God is not among us ¹⁴ ?’

Deuteronomy 31:1

Succession of Moses by Joshua

31:1 Then Moses went ¹⁵  and spoke these words ¹⁶  to all Israel.

Deuteronomy 9:6-9

9:6 Understand, therefore, that it is not because of your righteousness that the Lord your God is about to give you this good land as a possession, for you are a stubborn ¹⁷  people!

The History of Israel’s Stubbornness

9:7 Remember – don’t ever forget ¹⁸  – how you provoked the Lord your God in the desert; from the time you left the land of Egypt until you came to this place you were constantly rebelling against him. ¹⁹  9:8 At Horeb you provoked him and he was angry enough with you to destroy you. 9:9 When I went up the mountain to receive the stone tablets, the tablets of the covenant that the Lord made with you, I remained there ²⁰  forty days and nights, eating and drinking nothing.

Ezra 8:22

8:22 I was embarrassed to request soldiers and horsemen from the king to protect us from the enemy ²¹  along the way, because we had said to the king, “The good hand of our God is on everyone who is seeking him, but his great anger ²²  is against everyone who forsakes him.”

Isaiah 1:28

1:28 All rebellious sinners will be shattered, ²³ 

those who abandon the Lord will perish.

Hebrews 10:38-39

10:38 But my righteous one will live by faith, and if he shrinks back, I ²⁴  take no pleasure in him. ²⁵  10:39 But we are not among those who shrink back and thus perish, but are among those who have faith and preserve their souls. ²⁶ 

¹ tn Heb “lie down with your fathers” (so NASB); NRSV “ancestors.”

² tn Heb “he.” Smr, LXX, and the Targums read the plural “they,” which is necessary in any case in the translation because of contemporary English style. The third person singular also occurs in the Hebrew text twice more in this verse, three times in v. 17, once in v. 18, five times in v. 20, and four times in v. 21. Each time it is translated as third person plural for stylistic reasons.

³ tn Heb “he.” Smr, LXX, and the Targums read the plural “they.” See note on the first occurrence of “they” in v. 16.

⁴ tn Or “abandon” (TEV, NLT).

⁵ tn Heb “him.” Smr, LXX, and the Targums read the plural “them.” See note on the first occurrence of “they” in v. 16.

⁶ tn Heb “on that day.” This same expression also appears later in the verse and in v. 18.

⁷ tn Heb “him.” Smr, LXX, and the Targums read the plural “them.” See note on the first occurrence of “they” in v. 16.

⁸ tn Heb “find,” “encounter.”

⁹ tn Heb “him.” Smr, LXX, and the Targums read the plural “them.” See note on the first occurrence of “they” in v. 16.

¹⁰ tn Heb “he.” Smr, LXX, and the Targums read the plural “they.” See note on the first occurrence of “they” in v. 16.

¹¹ tn Heb “evils.”

¹² tn Heb “me.” Smr, LXX, and the Targums read the plural “us,” which is necessary in any case in the translation because of contemporary English style.

¹³ tn Heb “my.”

¹⁴ tn Heb “me.” Smr, LXX, and the Targums read the plural “us,” which is necessary in any case in the translation because of contemporary English style.

¹¹ tc For the MT reading וַיֵּלֶךְ (vayyelekh, “he went”), the LXX and Qumran have וַיְכַל (vaykhal, “he finished”): “So Moses finished speaking,” etc. The difficult reading of the MT favors its authenticity.

¹² tn In the MT this refers to the words that follow (cf. NIV, NCV).

¹⁶ tn Heb “stiff-necked” (so KJV, NAB, NIV).

²¹ tn By juxtaposing the positive זְכֹר (zekhor, “remember”) with the negative אַל־תִּשְׁכַּח (’al-tishÿkakh, “do not forget”), Moses makes a most emphatic plea.

²² tn Heb “the Lord” (likewise in the following verse with both “him” and “he”). See note on “he” in 9:3.

²⁶ tn Heb “in the mountain.” The demonstrative pronoun has been used in the translation for stylistic reasons.

³¹ tn A number of modern translations regard this as a collective singular and translate “from enemies” (also in v. 31).

³² tn Heb “his strength and his anger.” The expression is a hendiadys (one concept expressed through two terms).

³⁶ tn Heb “and [there will be] a shattering of rebels and sinners together.”

⁴¹ tn Grk “my soul.”

⁴² sn A quotation from Hab 2:4.

⁴⁶ tn Grk “not…of shrinking back to perdition but of faith to the preservation of the soul.”