Leviticus 19:12

19:12 You must not swear falsely ¹  in my name, so that you do not profane ²  the name of your God. I am the Lord.

Exodus 22:9-11

22:9 In all cases of illegal possessions, ³  whether for an ox, a donkey, a sheep, a garment, or any kind of lost item, about which someone says ‘This belongs to me,’ ⁴  the matter of the two of them will come before the judges, ⁵  and the one whom ⁶  the judges declare guilty ⁷  must repay double to his neighbor. 22:10 If a man gives his neighbor a donkey or an ox or a sheep or any beast to keep, and it dies or is hurt ⁸  or is carried away ⁹  without anyone seeing it, ¹⁰  22:11 then there will be an oath to the Lord ¹¹  between the two of them, that he has not laid his hand on his neighbor’s goods, and its owner will accept this, and he will not have to pay.

Proverbs 30:9

30:9 lest I become satisfied and act deceptively ¹² 

and say, “Who is the Lord?”

Or lest I become poor and steal

and demean ¹³  the name of my God.

Jeremiah 5:2

5:2 These people make promises in the name of the Lord. ¹⁴ 

But the fact is, ¹⁵  what they swear to is really a lie.” ¹⁶ 

Jeremiah 7:9

7:9 You steal. ¹⁷  You murder. You commit adultery. You lie when you swear on oath. You sacrifice to the god Baal. You pay allegiance to ¹⁸  other gods whom you have not previously known.

Zechariah 5:4

5:4 “I will send it out,” says the Lord who rules over all, “and it will enter the house of the thief and of the person who swears falsely in my name. It will land in the middle of his house and destroy both timber and stones.”

Malachi 3:5

3:5 “I ¹⁹  will come to you in judgment. I will be quick to testify against those who practice divination, those who commit adultery, those who break promises, ²⁰  and those who exploit workers, widows, and orphans, ²¹  who refuse to help ²²  the immigrant ²³  and in this way show they do not fear me,” says the Lord who rules over all.

¹ tn Heb “And you shall not swear to the falsehood.”

² tn Heb “and you shall not profane”; NAB “thus profaning.”

³ tn Heb “concerning every kind [thing] of trespass.”

⁴ tn The text simply has “this is it” (הוּא זֶה, hu’ zeh).

⁵ tn Again, or “God.”

⁶ tn This kind of clause Gesenius calls an independent relative clause – it does not depend on a governing substantive but itself expresses a substantival idea (GKC 445-46 §138.e).

⁷ tn The verb means “to be guilty” in Qal; in Hiphil it would have a declarative sense, because a causative sense would not possibly fit.

⁸ tn The form is a Niphal participle from the verb “to break” – “is broken,” which means harmed, maimed, or hurt in any way.

⁹ tn This verb is frequently used with the meaning “to take captive.” The idea here then is that raiders or robbers have carried off the animal.

¹⁰ tn Heb “there is no one seeing.”

¹¹ tn The construct relationship שְׁבֻעַת יְהוָה (shÿvu’at yÿhvah, “the oath of Yahweh”) would require a genitive of indirect object, “an oath [to] Yahweh.” U. Cassuto suggests that it means “an oath by Yahweh” (Exodus, 287). The person to whom the animal was entrusted would take a solemn oath to Yahweh that he did not appropriate the animal for himself, and then his word would be accepted.

¹² tn The verb כָּחַשׁ (kakhash) means “to be disappointing; to deceive; to fail; to grow lean.” In the Piel stem it means “to deceive; to act deceptively; to cringe; to disappoint.” The idea of acting deceptively is illustrated in Hos 9:2 where it has the connotation of “disowning” or “refusing to acknowledge” (a meaning very close to its meaning here).

¹³ tn The Hebrew verb literally means “to take hold of; to seize”; this produces the idea of doing violence to the reputation of God.

¹⁴ tn Heb “Though they say, ‘As surely as the Lord lives.” The idea of “swear on oath” comes from the second line.

¹⁵ tc The translation follows many Hebrew mss and the Syriac version in reading “surely” (אָכֵן, ’akhen) instead of “therefore” (לָכֵן, lakhen) in the MT.

¹⁶ tn Heb “they swear falsely.”

¹⁷ tn Heb “Will you steal…then say, ‘We are safe’?” Verses 9-10 are one long sentence in the Hebrew text.

¹⁸ tn Heb “You go/follow after.” See the translator’s note at 2:5 for an explanation of the idiom involved here.

¹⁹ tn The first person pronoun (a reference to the Lord) indicates that the Lord himself now speaks (see also v. 1). The prophet speaks in vv. 2-4 (see also 2:17).

²⁰ tn Heb “those who swear [oaths] falsely.” Cf. NIV “perjurers”; TEV “those who give false testimony”; NLT “liars.”

²¹ tn Heb “and against the oppressors of the worker for a wage, [the] widow and orphan.”

²² tn Heb “those who turn aside.”

²³ tn Or “resident foreigner”; NIV “aliens”; NRSV “the alien.”