Jeremiah 4:4

4:4 Just as ritual circumcision cuts away the foreskin

as an external symbol of dedicated covenant commitment,

you must genuinely dedicate yourselves to the Lord

and get rid of everything that hinders your commitment to me, ¹ 

people of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem.

If you do not, ²  my anger will blaze up like a flaming fire against you

that no one will be able to extinguish.

That will happen because of the evil you have done.”

Leviticus 26:41

26:41 (and I myself will walk in hostility against them and bring them into the land of their enemies), and ³  then their uncircumcised hearts become humbled and they make up for ⁴  their iniquity,

Deuteronomy 30:6

30:6 The Lord your God will also cleanse ⁵  your heart and the hearts of your descendants ⁶  so that you may love him ⁷  with all your mind and being and so that you may live.

Ezekiel 44:7

44:7 When you bring foreigners, those uncircumcised in heart and in flesh, into my sanctuary, you desecrate ⁸  it – even my house – when you offer my food, the fat and the blood. You ⁹  have broken my covenant by all your abominable practices.

Ezekiel 44:9

44:9 This is what the sovereign Lord says: No foreigner, who is uncircumcised in heart and flesh among all the foreigners who are among the people of Israel, will enter into my sanctuary. ¹⁰ 

Acts 7:51

7:51 “You stubborn ¹¹  people, with uncircumcised ¹²  hearts and ears! ¹³  You are always resisting the Holy Spirit, like your ancestors ¹⁴  did!

Romans 2:28-29

2:28 For a person is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision something that is outward in the flesh, 2:29 but someone is a Jew who is one inwardly, and circumcision is of the heart ¹⁵  by the Spirit ¹⁶  and not by the written code. ¹⁷  This person’s ¹⁸  praise is not from people but from God.

¹ tn Heb “Circumcise yourselves to the Lord and remove the foreskin of your heart.” The translation is again an attempt to bring out the meaning of a metaphor. The mention of the “foreskin of the heart” shows that the passage is obviously metaphorical and involves heart attitude, not an external rite.

² tn Heb “lest.”

³ tn Heb “or then,” although the LXX has “then” and the Syriac “and then.”

⁴ tn Heb “and then they make up for.” On the verb “make up for” see the note on v. 34 above.

⁵ tn Heb “circumcise” (so KJV, NAB, NIV, NRSV); TEV “will give you and your descendents obedient hearts.” See note on the word “cleanse” in Deut 10:16.

⁶ tn Heb “seed” (so KJV, ASV).

⁷ tn Heb “the Lord your God.” See note on the second occurrence of the word “he” in v. 3.

⁸ tn Heb “to desecrate.”

⁹ tc The Greek, Syriac, and Latin versions read “you.” The Masoretic text reads “they.”

¹⁰ sn Tobiah, an Ammonite (Neh 13:8), was dismissed from the temple.

¹¹ sn Traditionally, “stiff-necked people.” Now the critique begins in earnest.

¹² tn The term ἀπερίτμητοι (aperitmhtoi, “uncircumcised”) is a NT hapax legomenon (occurs only once). See BDAG 101-2 s.v. ἀπερίτμητος and Isa 52:1.

¹³ tn Or “You stubborn and obstinate people!” (The phrase “uncircumcised hearts and ears” is another figure for stubbornness.)

¹⁴ tn Or “forefathers”; Grk “fathers.”

¹⁵ sn On circumcision is of the heart see Lev 26:41; Deut 10:16; Jer 4:4; Ezek 44:9.

¹⁶ tn Some have taken the phrase ἐν πνεύματι (en pneumati, “by/in [the] S/spirit”) not as a reference to the Holy Spirit, but referring to circumcision as “spiritual and not literal” (RSV).

¹⁷ tn Grk “letter.”

¹⁸ tn Grk “whose.” The relative pronoun has been replaced by the phrase “this person’s” and, because of the length and complexity of the Greek sentence, a new sentence was started in the translation.