Deuteronomy 9:16

9:16 When I looked, you had indeed sinned against the Lord your God and had cast for yourselves a metal calf; ¹  you had quickly turned aside from the way he ²  had commanded you!

Jude 1:17

Exhortation to the Faithful

1:17 But you, dear friends – recall the predictions ³  foretold by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ. ⁴ 

Psalms 78:57

78:57 They were unfaithful ⁵  and acted as treacherously as ⁶  their ancestors;

they were as unreliable as a malfunctioning bow. ⁷ 

Hosea 6:4

Transitory Faithfulness and Imminent Judgment

6:4 What am I going to do with you, O Ephraim?

What am I going to do with you, O Judah?

For ⁸  your faithfulness is as fleeting as the morning mist; ⁹ 

it disappears as quickly as dawn’s dew! ¹⁰ 

Galatians 1:6

Occasion of the Letter

1:6 I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one ¹¹  who called you by the grace of Christ ¹²  and are following ¹³  a different ¹⁴  gospel –

¹ tn On the phrase “metal calf,” see note on the term “metal image” in v. 12.

² tn Heb “the Lord.” See note on “he” in 9:3.

³ tn Grk “words.” In conjunction with προεῖπον (proeipon), however, the meaning of the construction is that the apostles uttered prophecies.

⁴ sn This verse parallels 2 Pet 3:2 both conceptually and in much of the verbiage. There is one important difference, however: In 2 Pet 3:2 the prophets and apostles speak; here, just the apostles speak. This makes good sense if Jude is using 2 Peter as his main source and is urging his readers to go back to the authoritative writings, both OT and now especially NT.

⁵ tn Heb “they turned back.”

⁶ tn Or “acted treacherously like.”

⁷ tn Heb “they turned aside like a deceitful bow.”

⁸ tn The vav prefixed to וְחַסְדְּכֶם (vÿkhasdÿkhem, “your faithfulness”) functions in an explanatory sense (“For”).

⁹ tn Heb “your faithfulness [so NCV; NASB “your loyalty”; NIV, NRSV, NLT “your love”] is like a morning cloud” (וְחַסְדְּכֶם כַּעֲנַן־בֹּקֶר, vÿkhasdÿkhem ka’anan-boqer).

¹⁰ tn Heb “the dew departing early” (BDB 1014 s.v. שָׁכַם); cf. NRSV “the dew that goes away early.” The Hiphil participle מַשְׁכִּים (mashkim) means “to depart early” (Gen 19:27; Josh 8:14; Judg 19:9). The idiom means “early morning” (1 Sam 17:16).

¹¹ sn The one who called you is a reference to God the Father (note the mention of Christ in the following prepositional phrase and the mention of God the Father in 1:1).

¹² tc Although the majority of witnesses, including some of the most important ones (Ì⁵¹ א A B F^c Ψ 33 1739 1881 Ï f vg sy^p bo), read “by the grace of Christ” (χάριτι Χριστοῦ, cariti Cristou) here, this reading is not without variables. Besides alternate readings such as χάριτι ᾿Ιησοῦ Χριστοῦ (cariti Ihsou Cristou, “by the grace of Jesus Christ”; D 326 1241^s pc sy^h**) and χάριτι θεοῦ (cariti qeou, “by the grace of God”; 327 pc Thret^lem), a few mss (Ì^46vid F* G H^vid ar b Tert Cyp Ambst Pel) have simply χάριτι with no modifier. Internally, the reading that seems best to explain the rise of the others is the shortest reading, χάριτι. Indeed, the fact that three different adjuncts are found in the mss seems to be a natural expansion on the simple “grace.” At the same time, the witnesses for the shortest reading are not particularly impressive, being that they largely represent one textual strand (Western), and a less-than-reliable one at that. Further, nowhere else in the corpus Paulinum do we see the construction χάρις (cari", “grace”) followed by Χριστοῦ without some other name (such as κυρίου [kuriou, “Lord”] or ᾿Ιησοῦ). The construction χάρις θεοῦ is likewise frequent in Paul. Thus, upon closer inspection it seems that the original wording here was χάριτι Χριστοῦ (for it is difficult to explain how this particular reading could have arisen from the simple χάριτι, in light of Paul’s normal idioms), with the other readings intentionally or accidentally arising from it.

¹³ tn Grk “deserting [turning away] to” a different gospel, implying the idea of “following.”

¹⁴ tn Grk “another.”