9:5 One friend deceives another
and no one tells the truth.
These people have trained themselves 1 to tell lies.
They do wrong and are unable to repent.
9:8 Their tongues are like deadly arrows. 2
They are always telling lies. 3
Friendly words for their neighbors come from their mouths.
But their minds are thinking up ways to trap them. 4
59:13 We have rebelled and tried to deceive the Lord;
we turned back from following our God.
We stir up 5 oppression and rebellion;
we tell lies we concocted in our minds. 6
59:14 Justice is driven back;
godliness 7 stands far off.
Indeed, 8 honesty stumbles in the city square
and morality is not even able to enter.
59:15 Honesty has disappeared;
the one who tries to avoid evil is robbed.
The Lord watches and is displeased, 9
for there is no justice.
6:12 The city’s rich men think nothing of resorting to violence; 10
her inhabitants lie, 11
their tongues speak deceptive words. 12
4:25 Therefore, having laid aside falsehood, each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, 13 for we are members of one another.
1 tn Heb “their tongues.” However, this is probably not a natural idiom in contemporary English and the tongue may stand as a part for the whole anyway.
2 tc This reading follows the Masoretic consonants (the Kethib, a Qal active participle from שָׁחַט, shakhat). The Masoretes preferred to read “a sharpened arrow” (the Qere, a Qal passive participle from the same root or a homonym, meaning “hammered, beaten”). See HALOT 1354 s.v. II שָׁחַט for discussion. The exact meaning of the word makes little difference to the meaning of the metaphor itself.
3 tn Heb “They speak deceit.”
4 tn Heb “With his mouth a person speaks peace to his neighbor, but in his heart he sets an ambush for him.”
5 tn Heb “speaking.” A new sentence was started here in the translation for stylistic reasons.
6 tn Heb “conceiving and uttering from the heart words of falsehood.”
7 tn Or “righteousness” (ASV, NASB, NIV, NRSV); KJV, NAB “justice.”
8 tn Or “for” (KJV, NRSV).
9 tn Heb “and it is displeasing in his eyes.”
10 tn Heb “because her rich are full of violence.”
11 tn Heb “speak lies.”
12 tn Heb “and their tongue is deceptive in their mouth.”
13 sn A quotation from Zech 8:16.