Jeremiah 17:27

17:27 But you must obey me and set the Sabbath day apart to me. You must not carry any loads in through ¹  the gates of Jerusalem on the Sabbath day. If you disobey, I will set the gates of Jerusalem on fire. It will burn down all the fortified dwellings in Jerusalem and no one will be able to put it out.’”

Jeremiah 17:2

17:2 Their children are always thinking about ²  their ³  altars

and their sacred poles dedicated to the goddess Asherah, ⁴ 

set up beside the green trees on the high hills

Jeremiah 22:17

22:17 But you are always thinking and looking

for ways to increase your wealth by dishonest means.

Your eyes and your heart are set

on killing some innocent person

and committing fraud and oppression. ⁵ 

Isaiah 66:24

66:24 “They will go out and observe the corpses of those who rebelled against me, for the maggots that eat them will not die, ⁶  and the fire that consumes them will not die out. ⁷  All people will find the sight abhorrent.” ⁸ 

Mark 9:43-48

9:43 If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off! It is better for you to enter into life crippled than to have ⁹  two hands and go into hell, ¹⁰  to the unquenchable fire. 9:44 [[EMPTY]] ¹¹  9:45 If your foot causes you to sin, cut it off! It is better to enter life lame than to have ¹²  two feet and be thrown into hell. 9:46 [[EMPTY]] ¹³  9:47 If your eye causes you to sin, tear it out! ¹⁴  It is better to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye than to have ¹⁵  two eyes and be thrown into hell, 9:48 where their worm never dies and the fire is never quenched.

¹ tn Heb “carry loads on the Sabbath and bring [them] in through.” The translation treats the two verbs “carry” and “bring in” are an example of hendiadys (see the note on “through” in 17:21).

² tn It is difficult to convey in good English style the connection between this verse and the preceding. The text does not have a finite verb but a temporal preposition with an infinitive: Heb “while their children remember their altars…” It is also difficult to translate the verb “literally.” (i.e., what does “remember” their altars mean?). Hence it has been rendered “always think about.” Another possibility would be “have their altars…on their minds.”

³ tc This reading follows many Hebrew mss and ancient versions. Many other Hebrew mss read “your” [masc. pl.].

⁴ sn Sacred poles dedicated to…Asherah. A leading deity of the Canaanite pantheon was Asherah, wife/sister of El and goddess of fertility. She was commonly worshiped at shrines in or near groves of evergreen trees, or, failing that, at places marked by wooden poles (Hebrew אֲשֵׁרִים [’asherim], plural). They were to be burned or cut down (Deut 7:5; 12:3; 16:21; Judg 6:25, 28, 30; 2 Kgs 18:4).

⁵ tn Heb “Your eyes and your heart do not exist except for dishonest gain and for innocent blood to shed [it] and for fraud and for oppression to do [them].” The sentence has been broken up to conform more to English style and the significance of “eyes” and “heart” explained before they are introduced into the translation.

⁶ tn Heb “for their worm will not die.”

⁷ tn Heb “and their fire will not be extinguished.”

⁸ tn Heb “and they will be an abhorrence to all flesh.”

⁹ tn Grk “than having.”

¹⁰ sn The word translated hell is “Gehenna” (γέεννα, geenna), a Greek transliteration of the Hebrew words ge hinnom (“Valley of Hinnom”). This was the valley along the south side of Jerusalem. In OT times it was used for human sacrifices to the pagan god Molech (cf. Jer 7:31; 19:5-6; 32:35), and it came to be used as a place where human excrement and rubbish were disposed of and burned. In the intertestamental period, it came to be used symbolically as the place of divine punishment (cf. 1 En. 27:2, 90:26; 4 Ezra 7:36). This Greek term also occurs in vv. 45, 47.

¹¹ tc Most later mss have 9:44 here and 9:46 after v. 45: “where their worm never dies and the fire is never quenched” (identical with v. 48). Verses 44 and 46 are present in A D Θ Ë¹³ Ï lat sy^p,h, but lacking in important Alexandrian mss and several others (א B C L W Δ Ψ 0274 ˹ 28 565 892 2427 pc co). This appears to be a scribal addition from v. 48 and is almost certainly not an original part of the Greek text of Mark. The present translation follows NA²⁷ in omitting the verse number, a procedure also followed by a number of other modern translations.

¹² tn Grk “than having.”

¹³ tc See tc note at the end of v. 43.

¹⁴ tn Grk “throw it out.”

¹⁵ tn Grk “than having.”