Ezekiel 20:47-48

20:47 and say to the scrub land of the Negev, ‘Hear the word of the Lord: This is what the sovereign Lord says: Look here, ¹  I am about to start a fire in you, ²  and it will devour every green tree and every dry tree in you. The flaming fire will not be extinguished, and the whole surface of the ground from the Negev to the north will be scorched by it. 20:48 And everyone ³  will see that I, the Lord, have burned it; it will not be extinguished.’”

Malachi 4:1

4:1 (3:19) ⁴  “For indeed the day ⁵  is coming, burning like a furnace, and all the arrogant evildoers will be chaff. The coming day will burn them up,” says the Lord who rules over all. “It ⁶  will not leave even a root or branch.

Matthew 3:10

3:10 Even now the ax is laid at ⁷  the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.

Matthew 3:12

3:12 His winnowing fork ⁸  is in his hand, and he will clean out his threshing floor and will gather his wheat into the storehouse, ⁹  but the chaff he will burn up with inextinguishable fire.” ¹⁰ 

¹ tn The word הִנֵּה (hinneh, traditionally “behold”) indicates becoming aware of something and has been translated here as a verb.

² tn Fire also appears as a form of judgment in Ezek 15:4-7; 19:12, 14.

³ tn Heb “all flesh.”

⁴ sn Beginning with 4:1, the verse numbers through 4:6 in the English Bible differ from the verse numbers in the Hebrew text (BHS), with 4:1 ET = 3:19 HT, 4:2 ET = 3:20 HT, etc., through 4:6 ET = 3:24 HT. Thus the book of Malachi in the Hebrew Bible has only three chapters, with 24 verses in ch. 3.

⁵ sn This day is the well-known “day of the Lord” so pervasive in OT eschatological texts (see Joel 2:30-31; Amos 5:18; Obad 15). For the believer it is a day of grace and salvation; for the sinner, a day of judgment and destruction.

⁶ tn Heb “so that it” (so NASB, NRSV). For stylistic reasons a new sentence was begun here in the translation.

⁷ sn Laid at the root. That is, placed and aimed, ready to begin cutting.

⁸ sn A winnowing fork was a pitchfork-like tool used to toss threshed grain in the air so that the wind blew away the chaff, leaving the grain to fall to the ground. The note of purging is highlighted by the use of imagery involving sifting though threshed grain for the useful kernels.

⁹ tn Or “granary,” “barn” (referring to a building used to store a farm’s produce rather than a building to house livestock).

¹⁰ sn The image of fire that cannot be extinguished is from the OT: Job 20:26; Isa 34:8-10; 66:24.