3:20 “When a righteous person turns from his righteousness and commits iniquity, and I set an obstacle 4 before him, he will die. If you have not warned him, he will die for his sin. The righteous deeds he performed will not be considered, but I will hold you accountable for his death.
“‘You were like a lion 5 among the nations,
but you are a monster in the seas;
you thrash about in your streams,
stir up the water with your feet,
and muddy your 6 streams.
32:3 “‘This is what the sovereign Lord says:
“‘I will throw my net over you 7 in the assembly of many peoples;
and they will haul you up in my dragnet.
32:4 I will leave you on the ground,
I will fling you on the open field,
I will allow 8 all the birds of the sky to settle 9 on you,
and I will permit 10 all the wild animals 11 to gorge themselves on you.
32:5 I will put your flesh on the mountains,
and fill the valleys with your maggot-infested carcass. 12
32:6 I will drench the land with the flow
of your blood up to the mountains,
and the ravines will be full of your blood. 13
32:7 When I extinguish you, I will cover the sky;
I will darken its stars.
I will cover the sun with a cloud,
and the moon will not shine. 14
32:8 I will darken all the lights in the sky over you,
and I will darken your land,
declares the sovereign Lord.
32:9 I will disturb 15 many peoples,
when I bring about your destruction among the nations,
among countries you do not know.
18:6 “But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, 16 it would be better for him to have a huge millstone 17 hung around his neck and to be drowned in the open sea. 18 18:7 Woe to the world because of stumbling blocks! It 19 is necessary that stumbling blocks come, but woe to the person through whom they come.
1 sn Even though the infinitive absolute is used to emphasize the warning, the warning is still implicitly conditional, as the following context makes clear.
2 tn Or “in his punishment.” The phrase “in/for [a person’s] iniquity” occurs fourteen times in Ezekiel: here and v. 19; 4:17; 7:13, 16; 18: 17, 18, 19, 20; 24:23; 33:6, 8, 9; 39:23. The Hebrew word for “iniquity” may also mean the “punishment for iniquity.”
3 tn Heb “his blood I will seek from your hand.” The expression “seek blood from the hand” is equivalent to requiring the death penalty (2 Sam 4:11-12).
4 tn Or “stumbling block.” The Hebrew term refers to an obstacle in the road in Lev 19:14.
5 tn The lion was a figure of royalty (Ezek 19:1-9).
6 tc The Hebrew reads “their streams”; the LXX reads “your streams.”
7 tn The expression “throw my net” is common in Ezekiel (12:13; 17:20; 19:8).
8 tn Or “cause.”
9 tn Heb “live.”
10 tn Or “cause.”
11 tn Heb “the beasts of the field,” referring to wild as opposed to domesticated animals.
12 tc The Hebrew text is difficult here, apparently meaning “your height.” Following Symmachus and the Syriac, it is preferable to emend the text to read “your maggots.” See D. I. Block, Ezekiel (NICOT), 2:203.
13 tn Heb “from you.”
14 tn Heb “will not shine its light.” For similar features of cosmic eschatology, see Joel 2:10; 4:15; Amos 5:18-20; Zeph 1:5.
15 tn Heb “I will provoke the heart of.”
16 tn The Greek term σκανδαλίζω (skandalizw), translated here “causes to sin” can also be translated “offends” or “causes to stumble.”
17 tn Grk “the millstone of a donkey.” This refers to a large flat stone turned by a donkey in the process of grinding grain (BDAG 661 s.v. μύλος 2; L&N 7.68-69). The same term is used in the parallel account in Mark 9:42.
18 tn The term translated “open” here (πελάγει, pelagei) refers to the open sea as opposed to a stretch of water near a coastline (BDAG 794 s.v. πέλαγος). A similar English expression would be “the high seas.”
19 tn Grk “For it.” Here γάρ (gar) has not been translated.
20 tn Or “testify.”
21 tn Grk “clean, pure,” thus “guiltless” (BDAG 489 s.v. καθαρός 3.a).
22 tn That is, “that if any of you should be lost, I am not responsible” (an idiom). According to L&N 33.223, the meaning of the phrase “that I am innocent of the blood of all of you” is “that if any of you should be lost, I am not responsible.” However, due to the length of this phrase and its familiarity to many modern English readers, the translation was kept closer to formal equivalence in this case. The word “you” is not in the Greek text, but is implied; Paul is addressing the Ephesian congregation (in the person of its elders) in both v. 25 and 27.
23 tn Or “did not avoid.” BDAG 1041 s.v. ὑποστέλλω 2.b has “shrink from, avoid implying fear…οὐ γὰρ ὑπεστειλάμην τοῦ μὴ ἀναγγεῖλαι I did not shrink from proclaiming Ac 20:27”; L&N 13.160 has “to hold oneself back from doing something, with the implication of some fearful concern – ‘to hold back from, to shrink from, to avoid’…‘for I have not held back from announcing to you the whole purpose of God’ Ac 20:27.”
24 tn Or “proclaiming,” “declaring.”
25 tn Or “plan.”