Joshua 23:13

23:13 know for certain that the Lord our God will no longer drive out these nations from before you. They will trap and ensnare you; ¹  they will be a whip that tears ²  your sides and thorns that blind ³  your eyes until you disappear ⁴  from this good land the Lord your God gave you.

Genesis 15:18-21

15:18 That day the Lord made a covenant ⁵  with Abram: “To your descendants I give ⁶  this land, from the river of Egypt ⁷  to the great river, the Euphrates River – 15:19 the land ⁸  of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, 15:20 Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaites, 15:21 Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites, and Jebusites.” ⁹ 

Exodus 23:30-31

23:30 Little by little ¹⁰  I will drive them out before you, until you become fruitful and inherit the land. 23:31 I will set ¹¹  your boundaries from the Red Sea to the sea of the Philistines, and from the desert to the River, ¹²  for I will deliver the inhabitants of the land into your hand, and you will drive them out before you.

Jude 1:21-23

1:21 maintain ¹³  yourselves in the love of God, while anticipating ¹⁴  the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that brings eternal life. ¹⁵  1:22 And have mercy on those who waver; 1:23 save ¹⁶  others by snatching them out of the fire; have mercy ¹⁷  on others, coupled with a fear of God, ¹⁸  hating even the clothes stained ¹⁹  by the flesh. ²⁰ 

¹ tn Heb “be a trap and a snare to you.”

² tn Heb “in.”

³ tn Heb “thorns in your eyes.”

⁴ tn Or “perish.”

⁵ tn Heb “cut a covenant.”

⁶ tn The perfect verbal form is understood as instantaneous (“I here and now give”). Another option is to understand it as rhetorical, indicating certitude (“I have given” meaning it is as good as done, i.e., “I will surely give”).

⁷ sn The river of Egypt is a wadi (a seasonal stream) on the northeastern border of Egypt, not to the River Nile.

⁸ tn The words “the land” are supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons.

⁹ tn Each of the names in the list has the Hebrew definite article, which is used here generically for the class of people identified.

¹⁰ tn The repetition expresses an exceptional or super-fine quality (see GKC 396 §123.e).

¹¹ tn The form is a perfect tense with vav consecutive.

¹² tn In the Hebrew Bible “the River” usually refers to the Euphrates (cf. NASB, NCV, NRSV, TEV, CEV, NLT). There is some thought that it refers to a river Nahr el Kebir between Lebanon and Syria. See further W. C. Kaiser, Jr., “Exodus,” EBC 2:447; and G. W. Buchanan, The Consequences of the Covenant (NovTSup), 91-100.

¹³ tn Or “keep.”

¹⁴ tn Or “waiting for.”

¹⁵ tn Grk “unto eternal life.”

¹⁶ tn Grk “and save.”

¹⁷ tn Grk “and have mercy.”

¹⁸ tn Grk “with fear.” But as this contrasts with ἀφόβως (afobw") in v. 12 (without reverence), the posture of the false teachers, it most likely refers to reverence for God.

¹⁹ sn The imagery here suggests that the things close to the sinners are contaminated by them, presumably during the process of sinning.

²⁰ tn Grk “hating even the tunic spotted by the flesh.” The “flesh” in this instance could refer to the body or to the sin nature. It makes little difference in one sense: Jude is thinking primarily of sexual sins, which are borne of the sin nature and manifest themselves in inappropriate deeds done with the body. At the same time, he is not saying that the body is intrinsically bad, a view held by the opponents of Christianity. Hence, it is best to see “flesh” as referring to the sin nature here and the language as metaphorical.