34:4 All the stars in the sky will fade away, 1
the sky will roll up like a scroll;
all its stars will wither,
like a leaf withers and falls from a vine
or a fig withers and falls from a tree. 2
51:6 Look up at the sky!
Look at the earth below!
For the sky will dissipate 3 like smoke,
and the earth will wear out like clothes;
its residents will die like gnats.
But the deliverance I give 4 is permanent;
the vindication I provide 5 will not disappear. 6
65:17 For look, I am ready to create
new heavens and a new earth! 7
The former ones 8 will not be remembered;
no one will think about them anymore. 9
3:9 What then? Are we better off? Certainly not, for we have already charged that Jews and Greeks alike are all under sin, 3:10 just as it is written:
“There is no one righteous, not even one,
3:11 there is no one who understands,
there is no one who seeks God.
3:12 All have turned away,
together they have become worthless;
there is no one who shows kindness, not even one.” 17
20:11 Then 18 I saw a large 19 white throne and the one who was seated on it; the earth and the heaven 20 fled 21 from his presence, and no place was found for them.
21:1 Then 22 I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and earth had ceased to exist, 23 and the sea existed no more.
1 tc Heb “and all the host of heaven will rot.” The Qumran scroll 1QIsaa inserts “and the valleys will be split open,” but this reading may be influenced by Mic 1:4. On the other hand, the statement, if original, could have been omitted by homoioarcton, a scribe’s eye jumping from the conjunction prefixed to “the valleys” to the conjunction prefixed to the verb “rot.”
2 tn Heb “like the withering of a leaf from a vine, and like the withering from a fig tree.”
3 tn Heb “will be torn in pieces.” The perfect indicates the certitude of the event, from the Lord’s rhetorical perspective.
4 tn Heb “my deliverance.” The same Hebrew word can also be translated “salvation” (so KJV, NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV, NLT); cf. CEV “victory.”
5 tn Heb “my righteousness [or “vindication”].”
6 tn Heb “will not be shattered [or “dismayed”].”
7 sn This hyperbolic statement likens the coming transformation of Jerusalem (see vv. 18-19) to a new creation of the cosmos.
8 tn Or perhaps, “the former things” (so ASV, NASB, NIV, NRSV); TEV “The events of the past.”
9 tn Heb “and they will not come up on the mind.”
10 sn The words that Jesus predicts here will never pass away. They are more stable and lasting than creation itself. For this kind of image, see Isa 40:8; 55:10-11.
11 tn Grk “because of the one”; the referent (God) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
12 tn Grk “for the law of the Spirit of life.”
13 tc Most
14 tn Grk “abounded unto.”
15 tn Grk “(as we are slandered and some affirm that we say…).”
16 tn Grk “whose.” Because of the length and complexity of the Greek sentence, this relative clause was rendered as a new sentence in the translation.
17 sn Verses 10-12 are a quotation from Ps 14:1-3.
18 tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “then” to indicate the implied sequence within the narrative.
19 tn Traditionally, “great,” but μέγας (megas) here refers to size rather than importance.
20 tn Or “and the sky.” The same Greek word means both “heaven” and “sky,” and context usually determines which is meant. In this apocalyptic scene, however, it is difficult to be sure what referent to assign the term.
21 tn Or “vanished.”
22 tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “then” to indicate the implied sequence within the narrative.
23 tn For the translation of ἀπέρχομαι (apercomai; here ἀπῆλθαν [aphlqan]) L&N 13.93 has “to go out of existence – ‘to cease to exist, to pass away, to cease.’”