Ezekiel 6:9

6:9 Then your survivors will remember me among the nations where they are exiled. They will realize ¹  how I was crushed by their unfaithful ²  heart which turned from me and by their eyes which lusted after their idols. They will loathe themselves ³  because of the evil they have done and because of all their abominable practices.

Leviticus 26:39-41

Restoration through Confession and Repentance

26:39 “‘As for the ones who remain among you, they will rot away because of ⁴  their iniquity in the lands of your enemies, and they will also rot away because of their ancestors’ ⁵  iniquities which are with them. 26:40 However, when ⁶  they confess their iniquity and their ancestors’ iniquity which they committed by trespassing against me, ⁷  by which they also walked ⁸  in hostility against me ⁹  26:41 (and I myself will walk in hostility against them and bring them into the land of their enemies), and ¹⁰  then their uncircumcised hearts become humbled and they make up for ¹¹  their iniquity,

Nehemiah 1:8-10

1:8 Please recall the word you commanded your servant Moses: ‘If you act unfaithfully, I will scatter you among the nations. ¹²  1:9 But if you repent ¹³  and obey ¹⁴  my commandments and do them, then even if your dispersed people are in the most remote location, ¹⁵  I will gather them from there and bring them to the place I have chosen for my name to reside.’ 1:10 They are your servants and your people, whom you have redeemed by your mighty strength and by your powerful hand.

Hosea 5:15

5:15 Then I will return again to my lair

until they have suffered their punishment. ¹⁶ 

Then they will seek me; ¹⁷ 

in their distress they will earnestly seek me.

¹ 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.”

² 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.

³ tn Heb adds “in their faces.”

⁴ tn Heb “in” (so KJV, ASV; also later in this verse).

⁵ tn Heb “fathers’” (also in the following verse).

⁶ tn Heb “And.” Many English versions take this to be a conditional clause (“if…”) though there is no conditional particle (see, e.g., NASB, NIV, NRSV; but see the very different rendering in B. A. Levine, Leviticus [JPSTC], 190). The temporal translation offered here (“when”) takes into account the particle אָז (’az, “then”), which occurs twice in v. 41. The obvious contextual contrast between vv. 39 and 40 is expressed by “however” in the translation.

⁷ tn Heb “in their trespassing which they trespassed in me.” See the note on Lev 5:15, although the term is used in a more technical sense there in relation to the “guilt offering.”

⁸ tn Heb “and also which they walked.”

⁹ tn Heb “with me.”

¹⁰ tn Heb “or then,” although the LXX has “then” and the Syriac “and then.”

¹¹ tn Heb “and then they make up for.” On the verb “make up for” see the note on v. 34 above.

¹² tn Heb “peoples.”

¹³ tn Heb “turn to me.”

¹⁴ tn Heb “keep.” See the note on the word “obey” in Neh 1:5.

¹⁵ tn Heb “at the end of the heavens.”

¹⁶ tn The verb יֶאְשְׁמוּ (ye’shÿmu, Qal imperfect 3rd person masculine plural from אָשַׁם, ’asham, “to be guilty”) means “to bear their punishment” (Ps 34:22-23; Prov 30:10; Isa 24:6; Jer 2:3; Hos 5:15; 10:2; 14:1; Zech 11:5; Ezek 6:6; BDB 79 s.v. אָשַׁם 3). Many English versions translate this as “admit their guilt” (NIV, NLT) or “acknowledge their guilt” (NASB, NRSV), but cf. NAB “pay for their guilt” and TEV “have suffered enough for their sins.”

¹⁷ tn Heb “seek my face” (so KJV, NASB, NIV, NRSV); NAB “seek my presence.”