Leviticus 17:7

17:7 So they must no longer offer ¹  their sacrifices to the goat demons, ²  acting like prostitutes by going after them. ³  This is to be a perpetual statute for them throughout their generations. ⁴ 

Deuteronomy 32:17

32:17 They sacrificed to demons, not God,

to gods they had not known;

to new gods who had recently come along,

gods your ancestors ⁵  had not known about.

Deuteronomy 32:2

32:2 My teaching will drop like the rain,

my sayings will drip like the dew, ⁶ 

as rain drops upon the grass,

and showers upon new growth.

Deuteronomy 11:15

11:15 I will provide pasture ⁷  for your livestock and you will eat your fill.”

Deuteronomy 11:1

Reiteration of the Call to Obedience

11:1 You must love the Lord your God and do what he requires; keep his statutes, ordinances, and commandments ⁸  at all times.

Colossians 1:20

1:20 and through him to reconcile all things to himself by making peace through the blood of his cross – through him, ⁹  whether things on earth or things in heaven.

Revelation 9:20

9:20 The rest of humanity, who had not been killed by these plagues, did not repent of the works of their hands, so that they did not stop worshiping demons and idols made ¹⁰  of gold, silver, ¹¹  bronze, stone, and wood – idols that cannot see or hear or walk about.

¹ tn Heb “sacrifice.” This has been translated as “offer” for stylistic reasons to avoid the redundancy of “sacrifice their sacrifices.”

² tn On “goat demons” of the desert regions see the note on Lev 16:8.

³ tn Heb “which they are committing harlotry after them.”

⁴ tn Heb “for your generations.”

⁵ tn Heb “your fathers.”

⁶ tn Or “mist,” “light drizzle.” In some contexts the term appears to refer to light rain, rather than dew.

⁷ tn Heb “grass in your field.”

⁸ tn This collocation of technical terms for elements of the covenant text lends support to its importance and also signals a new section of paraenesis in which Moses will exhort Israel to covenant obedience. The Hebrew term מִשְׁמָרוֹת (mishmarot, “obligations”) sums up the three terms that follow – חֻקֹּת (khuqot), מִשְׁפָּטִים (mishppatim), and מִצְוֹת (mitsot).

⁹ tc The presence or absence of the second occurrence of the phrase δι᾿ αὐτοῦ (di’ autou, “through him”) is a difficult textual problem to solve. External evidence is fairly evenly divided. Many ancient and excellent witnesses lack the phrase (B D* F G I 0278 81 1175 1739 1881 2464 al latt sa), but equally important witnesses have it (Ì⁴⁶ א A C D¹ Ψ 048^vid 33 Ï). Both readings have strong Alexandrian support, which makes the problem difficult to decide on external evidence alone. Internal evidence points to the inclusion of the phrase as original. The word immediately preceding the phrase is the masculine pronoun αὐτοῦ (autou); thus the possibility of omission through homoioteleuton in various witnesses is likely. Scribes might have deleted the phrase because of perceived redundancy or awkwardness in the sense: The shorter reading is smoother and more elegant, so scribes would be prone to correct the text in that direction. As far as style is concerned, repetition of key words and phrases for emphasis is not foreign to the corpus Paulinum (see, e.g., Rom 8:23, Eph 1:13, 2 Cor 12:7). In short, it is easier to account for the shorter reading arising from the longer reading than vice versa, so the longer reading is more likely original.

¹⁰ tn The word “made” is not in the Greek text but is implied.

¹¹ tn The Greek conjunction καί (kai) has not been translated here or before the following materials in this list, since English normally uses a coordinating conjunction only between the last two elements in a series of three or more.