Jeremiah 44:4-5

44:4 I sent my servants the prophets to you people over and over ¹  again warning you not to do this disgusting thing I hate. ²  44:5 But the people of Jerusalem and Judah ³  would not listen or pay any attention. They would not stop the wickedness they were doing nor quit sacrificing to other gods. ⁴ 

Jeremiah 44:16

44:16 “We will not listen to what you claim the Lord has spoken to us! ⁵ 

Daniel 9:10-11

9:10 We have not obeyed ⁶  the LORD our God by living according to ⁷  his laws ⁸  that he set before us through his servants the prophets.

9:11 “All Israel has broken ⁹  your law and turned away by not obeying you. ¹⁰  Therefore you have poured out on us the judgment solemnly threatened ¹¹  in the law of Moses the servant of God, for we have sinned against you. ¹² 

Zechariah 7:9-13

7:9 “The Lord who rules over all said, ‘Exercise true judgment and show brotherhood and compassion to each other. 7:10 You must not oppress the widow, the orphan, the foreigner, or the poor, nor should anyone secretly plot evil against his fellow human being.’

7:11 “But they refused to pay attention, turning away stubbornly and stopping their ears so they could not hear. 7:12 Indeed, they made their heart as hard as diamond, ¹³  so that they could not obey the Torah and the other words the Lord who rules over all had sent by his Spirit through the former prophets. Therefore, the Lord who rules over all had poured out great wrath.

7:13 “‘It then came about that just as I ¹⁴  cried out, but they would not obey, so they will cry out, but I will not listen,’ the Lord Lord who rules over all had said.

Luke 20:10-12

20:10 When harvest time came, he sent a slave ¹⁵  to the tenants so that they would give ¹⁶  him his portion of the crop. ¹⁷  However, the tenants beat his slave ¹⁸  and sent him away empty-handed. 20:11 So ¹⁹  he sent another slave. They beat this one too, treated him outrageously, and sent him away empty-handed. ²⁰  20:12 So ²¹  he sent still a third. They even wounded this one, and threw him out.

¹ tn See 7:13 for an explanation of this idiom and compare 7:25; 25:4; 26:5; 29:19; 35:15 for similar references to the persistent warnings of the prophets.

² tn Heb “sent…over again, saying, ‘Do not do this terrible thing that I hate.’” The indirect quote has been used to shorten the sentence and eliminate one level of embedded quotes.

³ tn There appears to be a deliberate shift in the pronouns used in vv. 2-5. “You” refers to the people living in Egypt who are being addressed (v. 2) and to the people of present and past generations to whom the Lord persistently sent the prophets (v. 4). “They” refers to the people of Jerusalem and the towns of Judah who have suffered disaster (v. 2) because of the wickedness of sacrificing to other gods (vv. 3, 5). The referents have been explicitly identified in the translation for the sake of clarity.

⁴ tn Heb “They did not listen or incline their ear [= pay attention] by turning from their wickedness by not sacrificing to other gods.” The לְ (lamed) + the negative + the infinitive is again epexegetical. The sentence has been restructured and more idiomatic English expressions have been used to better conform with contemporary English style but an attempt has been made to retain the basic relationships of subordination.

⁵ tn Heb “the word [or message] you have spoken to us in the name of the Lord.” For an explanation of the rendering of “in the name of the Lord” see the study notes on 10:25 and 23:27.

⁶ tn Heb “paid attention to the voice of,” which is an idiomatic expression for obedience (cf. NASB “nor have we obeyed the voice of”).

⁷ tn Heb “to walk in.”

⁸ tc The LXX and Vulgate have the singular.

⁹ tn Or “transgressed.” The Hebrew verb has the primary sense of crossing a boundary, in this case, God’s law.

¹⁰ tn Heb “by not paying attention to your voice.”

¹¹ tn Heb “the curse and the oath which is written.” The term “curse” refers here to the judgments threatened in the Mosaic law (see Deut 28) for rebellion. The expression “the curse and the oath” is probably a hendiadys (cf. Num 5:21; Neh 10:29) referring to the fact that the covenant with its threatened judgments was ratified by solemn oath and made legally binding upon the covenant community.

¹² tn Heb “him.”

¹³ tn The Hebrew term שָׁמִיר (shamir) means literally “hardness” and since it is said in Ezek 3:9 to be harder than flint, many scholars suggest that it refers to diamond. It is unlikely that diamond was known to ancient Israel, however, so probably a hard stone like emery or corundum is in view. The translation nevertheless uses “diamond” because in modern times it has become proverbial for its hardness. A number of English versions use “flint” here (e.g., NASB, NIV).

¹⁴ tn Heb “he.” Since the third person pronoun refers to the Lord, it has been translated as a first person pronoun (“I”) to accommodate English style, which typically does not exhibit switches between persons of pronouns in the same immediate context as Hebrew does.

¹⁵ sn This slave (along with the next two) represent the prophets God sent to the nation, who were mistreated and rejected.

¹⁶ tc Instead of the future indicative δώσουσιν (dwsousin, “they will give”), most witnesses (C D W Θ Ψ Ë¹ Ï) have the aorist subjunctive δῶσιν (dwsin, “they might give”). The aorist subjunctive is expected following ἵνα ({ina, “so that”), so it is almost surely a motivated reading. Further, early and excellent witnesses, as well as a few others (א A B ˹³ 33 579 1241 2542 al), have δώσουσιν. It is thus more likely that the future indicative is authentic. For a discussion of this construction, see BDF §369.2.

¹⁷ tn Grk “from the fruit of the vineyard.”

¹⁸ tn Grk “him”; the referent (the slave sent by the owner) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

¹⁹ tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “so” to indicate the implied result of the tenants’ mistreatment of the first slave.

²⁰ sn The slaves being sent empty-handed suggests that the vineyard was not producing any fruit – and thus neither was the nation of Israel.

²¹ tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “so” to indicate the implied result of the tenants’ mistreatment of the first two slaves.