Ezekiel 14:4

14:4 Therefore speak to them and say to them, ‘This is what the sovereign Lord says: When any one from the house of Israel erects his idols in his heart and sets the obstacle leading to his iniquity before his face, and then consults a prophet, I the Lord am determined to answer him personally according to the enormity of his idolatry. ¹ 

Ezekiel 14:7

14:7 For when anyone from the house of Israel, or the foreigner who lives in Israel, separates himself from me and erects his idols in his heart and sets the obstacle leading to his iniquity before his face, and then consults a prophet to seek something from me, I the Lord am determined to answer him personally.

Ezekiel 6:9

6:9 Then your survivors will remember me among the nations where they are exiled. They will realize ²  how I was crushed by their unfaithful ³  heart which turned from me and by their eyes which lusted after their idols. They will loathe themselves ⁴  because of the evil they have done and because of all their abominable practices.

Ezekiel 11:21

11:21 But those whose hearts are devoted to detestable things and abominations, I hereby repay them for what they have done, ⁵  says the sovereign Lord.”

Ezekiel 20:16

20:16 I did this ⁶  because they rejected my regulations, did not follow my statutes, and desecrated my Sabbaths; for their hearts followed their idols. ⁷ 

Ezekiel 36:25

36:25 I will sprinkle you with pure water ⁸  and you will be clean from all your impurities. I will purify you from all your idols.

Jeremiah 17:1-2

17:1 ⁹ The sin of Judah is engraved with an iron chisel

on their stone-hard ¹⁰  hearts.

It is inscribed with a diamond ¹¹  point

on the horns of their altars. ¹² 

17:2 Their children are always thinking about ¹³  their ¹⁴  altars

and their sacred poles dedicated to the goddess Asherah, ¹⁵ 

set up beside the green trees on the high hills

Jeremiah 17:9

17:9 The human mind is more deceitful than anything else.

It is incurably bad. ¹⁶  Who can understand it?

Ephesians 5:5

5:5 For you can be confident of this one thing: ¹⁷  that no person who is immoral, impure, or greedy (such a person is an idolater) has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.

¹ tn Heb “in accordance with the multitude of his idols.”

² tn The words “they will realize” are not in the Hebrew text; they are added here for stylistic reasons since this clause assumes the previous verb “to remember” or “to take into account.”

³ tn Heb “how I was broken by their adulterous heart.” The image of God being “broken” is startling, but perfectly natural within the metaphorical framework of God as offended husband. The idiom must refer to the intense grief that Israel’s unfaithfulness caused God. For a discussion of the syntax and semantics of the Hebrew text, see M. Greenberg, Ezekiel (AB), 1:134.

⁴ tn Heb adds “in their faces.”

⁵ tn Heb “their way on their head I have placed.”

⁶ tn The words “I did this” are not in the Hebrew text, but are supplied for stylistic reasons. Verses 15-16 are one long sentence in the Hebrew text. The translation divides this sentence into two for stylistic reasons.

⁷ tn Heb “for after their idols their heart was going.” The use of the active participle (“was going”) in the Hebrew text draws attention to the ongoing nature of their idolatrous behavior.

⁸ 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.

⁹ tn The chapter division which was not a part of the original text but was added in the middle ages obscures the fact that there is no new speech here. The division may have resulted from the faulty identification of the “them” in the preceding verse. See the translator’s note on that verse.

¹⁰ tn The adjective “stone-hard” is not in the Hebrew text. It is implicit in the metaphor and is supplied in the translation for clarity. Cf. Ezek 11:19; 36:26; and Job 19:24 for the figure.

¹¹ tn Heb “adamant.” The word “diamond” is an accommodation to modern times. There is no evidence that diamond was known in ancient times. This hard stone (perhaps emery) became metaphorical for hardness; see Ezek 3:9 and Zech 7:12. For discussion see W. E. Staples, “Adamant,” IDB 1:45.

¹² tn This verse has been restructured for the sake of the English poetry: Heb “The sin of Judah is engraved [or written] with an iron pen, inscribed with a point of a diamond [or adamant] upon the tablet of their hearts and on the horns of their altars.”

¹³ tn It is difficult to convey in good English style the connection between this verse and the preceding. The text does not have a finite verb but a temporal preposition with an infinitive: Heb “while their children remember their altars…” It is also difficult to translate the verb “literally.” (i.e., what does “remember” their altars mean?). Hence it has been rendered “always think about.” Another possibility would be “have their altars…on their minds.”

¹⁴ tc This reading follows many Hebrew mss and ancient versions. Many other Hebrew mss read “your” [masc. pl.].

¹⁵ sn Sacred poles dedicated to…Asherah. A leading deity of the Canaanite pantheon was Asherah, wife/sister of El and goddess of fertility. She was commonly worshiped at shrines in or near groves of evergreen trees, or, failing that, at places marked by wooden poles (Hebrew אֲשֵׁרִים [’asherim], plural). They were to be burned or cut down (Deut 7:5; 12:3; 16:21; Judg 6:25, 28, 30; 2 Kgs 18:4).

¹⁶ tn Or “incurably deceitful”; Heb “It is incurable.” For the word “deceitful” compare the usage of the verb in Gen 27:36 and a related noun in 2 Kgs 10:19. For the adjective “incurable” compare the usage in Jer 15:18. It is most commonly used with reference to wounds or of pain. In Jer 17:16 it is used metaphorically for a “woeful day” (i.e., day of irreparable devastation).

¹⁷ tn Grk “be knowing this.” See also 2 Pet 1:20 for a similar phrase: τοῦτο πρῶτον γινώσκοντες (touto prwton ginwskonte").