Jeremiah 12:2

12:2 You plant them like trees and they put down their roots. ¹ 

They grow prosperous and are very fruitful. ² 

They always talk about you,

but they really care nothing about you. ³ 

Ezekiel 33:31

33:31 They come to you in crowds, ⁴  and they sit in front of you as ⁵  my people. They hear your words, but do not obey ⁶  them. For they talk lustfully, ⁷  and their heart is set on ⁸  their own advantage. ⁹ 

Matthew 7:21

Judgment of Pretenders

7:21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ ¹⁰  will enter into the kingdom of heaven – only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven.

Romans 10:8-10

10:8 But what does it say? “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” ¹¹  (that is, the word of faith that we preach), 10:9 because if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord ¹²  and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10:10 For with the heart one believes and thus has righteousness ¹³  and with the mouth one confesses and thus has salvation. ¹⁴ 

¹ tn Heb “You planted them and they took root.”

² tn Heb “they grow and produce fruit.” For the nuance “grow” for the verb which normally means “go, walk,” see BDB 232 s.v. חָלַךְ Qal.I.3 and compare Hos 14:7.

³ tn Heb “You are near in their mouths, but far from their kidneys.” The figure of substitution is being used here, “mouth” for “words” and “kidneys” for passions and affections. A contemporary equivalent might be, “your name is always on their lips, but their hearts are far from you.”

⁴ tn Heb “as people come.” Apparently this is an idiom indicating that they come in crowds. See D. I. Block, Ezekiel (NICOT), 2:264.

⁵ tn The word “as” is supplied in the translation.

⁶ tn Heb “do.”

⁷ tn Heb “They do lust with their mouths.”

⁸ tn Heb “goes after.”

⁹ tn The present translation understands the term often used for “unjust gain” in a wider sense, following M. Greenberg, who also notes that the LXX uses a term which can describe either sexual or ritual pollution. See M. Greenberg, Ezekiel (AB), 2:687.

¹⁰ sn The double use of the vocative is normally used in situations of high emotion or emphasis. Even an emphatic confession without action means little.

¹¹ sn A quotation from Deut 30:14.

¹² tn Or “the Lord.” The Greek construction, along with the quotation from Joel 2:32 in v. 13 (in which the same “Lord” seems to be in view) suggests that κύριον (kurion) is to be taken as “the Lord,” that is, Yahweh. Cf. D. B. Wallace, “The Semantics and Exegetical Significance of the Object-Complement Construction in the New Testament,” GTJ 6 (1985): 91-112.

¹³ tn Grk “believes to righteousness.”

¹⁴ tn Grk “confesses to salvation.”