Deuteronomy 4:40

4:40 Keep his statutes and commandments that I am setting forth ¹  today so that it may go well with you and your descendants and that you may enjoy longevity in the land that the Lord your God is about to give you as a permanent possession.

Deuteronomy 5:33--6:2

5:33 Walk just as he ²  has commanded you so that you may live, that it may go well with you, and that you may live long ³  in the land you are going to possess.

Exhortation to Keep the Covenant Principles

6:1 Now these are the commandments, ⁴  statutes, and ordinances that the Lord your God instructed me to teach you so that you may carry them out in the land where you are headed ⁵  6:2 and that you may so revere the Lord your God that you will keep all his statutes and commandments ⁶  that I am giving ⁷  you – you, your children, and your grandchildren – all your lives, to prolong your days.

Deuteronomy 6:21-25

6:21 you must say to them, ⁸  “We were Pharaoh’s slaves in Egypt, but the Lord brought us out of Egypt in a powerful way. ⁹  6:22 And he ¹⁰  brought signs and great, devastating wonders on Egypt, on Pharaoh, and on his whole family ¹¹  before our very eyes. 6:23 He delivered us from there so that he could give us the land he had promised our ancestors. 6:24 The Lord commanded us to obey all these statutes and to revere him ¹²  so that it may always go well for us and he may preserve us, as he has to this day. 6:25 We will be innocent if we carefully keep all these commandments ¹³  before the Lord our God, just as he demands.” ¹⁴ 

Ezekiel 36:24-28

36:24 “‘I will take you from the nations and gather you from all the countries; then I will bring you to your land. 36:25 I will sprinkle you with pure water ¹⁵  and you will be clean from all your impurities. I will purify you from all your idols. 36:26 I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit within you. I will remove the heart of stone ¹⁶  from your body and give you a heart of flesh. ¹⁷  36:27 I will put my Spirit within you; ¹⁸  I will take the initiative and you will obey my statutes ¹⁹  and carefully observe my regulations. ²⁰  36:28 Then you will live in the land I gave to your fathers; you will be my people, and I will be your God. ²¹ 

Ephesians 2:8-10

2:8 For by grace you are saved ²²  through faith, ²³  and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God; 2:9 it is not from ²⁴  works, so that no one can boast. ²⁵  2:10 For we are his workmanship, having been created in Christ Jesus for good works that God prepared beforehand so we may do them. ²⁶ 

Titus 2:14

2:14 He ²⁷  gave himself for us to set us free from every kind of lawlessness and to purify for himself a people who are truly his, ²⁸  who are eager to do good. ²⁹ 

¹ tn Heb “commanding” (so NRSV).

² tn Heb “the Lord your God.” The pronoun has been used in the translation for stylistic reasons to avoid redundancy.

³ tn Heb “may prolong your days”; NAB “may have long life”; TEV “will continue to live.”

⁴ tn Heb “commandment.” The word מִצְוָה (mitsvah) again is in the singular, serving as a comprehensive term for the whole stipulation section of the book. See note on the word “commandments” in 5:31.

⁵ tn Heb “where you are going over to possess it” (so NASB); NRSV “that you are about to cross into and occupy.”

⁶ tn Here the terms are not the usual חֻקִּים (khuqqim) and מִשְׁפָּטִים (mishpatim; as in v. 1) but חֻקֹּת (khuqqot, “statutes”) and מִצְוֹת (mitsot, “commandments”). It is clear that these terms are used interchangeably and that their technical precision ought not be overly stressed.

⁷ tn Heb “commanding.” For stylistic reasons, to avoid redundancy, “giving” has been used in the translation.

⁸ tn Heb “to your son.”

⁹ tn Heb “by a strong hand.” The image is that of a warrior who, with weapon in hand, overcomes his enemies. The Lord is commonly depicted as a divine warrior in the Book of Deuteronomy (cf. 5:15; 7:8; 9:26; 26:8).

¹⁰ tn Heb “the Lord.” See note on the word “his” in v. 17.

¹¹ tn Heb “house,” referring to the entire household.

¹² tn Heb “the Lord our God.” See note on the word “his” in v. 17.

¹³ tn The term “commandment” (מִצְוָה, mitsvah), here in the singular, refers to the entire body of covenant stipulations.

¹⁴ tn Heb “as he has commanded us” (so NIV, NRSV).

¹⁵ sn The Lord here uses a metaphor from the realm of ritual purification. For the use of water in ritual cleansing, see Exod 30:19-20; Lev 14:51; Num 19:18; Heb 10:22.

¹⁶ sn That is, a heart which symbolizes a will that is stubborn and unresponsive (see 1 Sam 25:37). In Rabbinic literature a “stone” was associated with an evil inclination (b. Sukkah 52a).

¹⁷ sn That is, a heart which symbolizes a will that is responsive and obedient to God.

¹⁸ tn Or “in the midst of you.” The word “you” is plural.

¹⁹ tn Heb “and I will do that which in my statutes you will walk.” The awkward syntax (verb “to do, act” + accusative sign + relative clause + prepositional phrase + second person verb) is unique, though Eccl 3:14 contains a similar construction. In the last line of that verse we read that “God acts so that (relative pronoun) they fear before him.” However, unlike Ezek 36:27, the statement has no accusative sign before the relative pronoun.

²⁰ tn Heb “and my laws you will guard and you will do them.” Jer 31:31-34 is parallel to this passage.

²¹ sn This promise reflects the ancient covenantal ideal (see Exod 6:7).

²² tn See note on the same expression in v. 5.

²³ tc The feminine article is found before πίστεως (pistews, “faith”) in the Byzantine text as well as in A Ψ 1881 pc. Perhaps for some scribes the article was intended to imply creedal fidelity as a necessary condition of salvation (“you are saved through the faith”), although elsewhere in the corpus Paulinum the phrase διὰ τῆς πίστεως (dia th" pistew") is used for the act of believing rather than the content of faith (cf. Rom 3:30, 31; Gal 3:14; Eph 3:17; Col 2:12). On the other side, strong representatives of the Alexandrian and Western texts (א B D* F G P 0278 6 33 1739 al bo) lack the article. Hence, both text-critically and exegetically, the meaning of the text here is most likely “saved through faith” as opposed to “saved through the faith.” Regarding the textual problem, the lack of the article is the preferred reading.

²⁴ tn Or “not as a result of.”

²⁵ tn Grk “lest anyone should boast.”

²⁶ tn Grk “so that we might walk in them” (or “by them”).

²⁷ tn Grk “who” (as a continuation of the previous clause).

²⁸ tn Or “a people who are his very own.”

²⁹ tn Grk “for good works.”