Numbers 15:39

15:39 You must have this tassel so that you may look at it and remember all the commandments of the Lord and obey them and so that you do not follow ¹  after your own heart and your own eyes that lead you to unfaithfulness. ² 

Ecclesiastes 11:9

Enjoy Life to the Fullest under the Fear of God

11:9 Rejoice, young man, while you are young, ³ 

and let your heart cheer you in the days of your youth.

Follow the impulses ⁴  of your heart and the desires ⁵  of your eyes,

but know that God will judge your motives and actions. ⁶ 

Ezekiel 6:9

6:9 Then your survivors will remember me among the nations where they are exiled. They will realize ⁷  how I was crushed by their unfaithful ⁸  heart which turned from me and by their eyes which lusted after their idols. They will loathe themselves ⁹  because of the evil they have done and because of all their abominable practices.

Ezekiel 14:3

14:3 “Son of man, these men have erected their idols in their hearts and placed the obstacle leading to their iniquity ¹⁰  right before their faces. Should I really allow them to seek ¹¹  me?

Ezekiel 14:7

14:7 For when anyone from the house of Israel, or the foreigner who lives in Israel, separates himself from me and erects his idols in his heart and sets the obstacle leading to his iniquity before his face, and then consults a prophet to seek something from me, I the Lord am determined to answer him personally.

Matthew 5:29

5:29 If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away! It is better to lose one of your members than to have your whole body thrown into hell. ¹² 

¹ tn Heb “seek out, look into.”

² tn This last clause is a relative clause explaining the influence of the human heart and physical sight. It literally says, “which you go whoring after them.” The verb for “whoring” may be interpreted to mean “act unfaithfully.” So, the idea is these influences lead to unfaithful activity: “after which you act unfaithfully.”

³ tn Heb “in your youth”; or “in your childhood.”

⁴ tn Heb “walk in the ways of your heart.”

⁵ tn Heb “the sight.”

⁶ tn Heb “and know that concerning all these God will bring you into judgment.” The point is not that following one’s impulses and desires is inherently bad and will bring condemnation from God. Rather the point seems to be: As you follow your impulses and desires, realize that all you think and do will eventually be evaluated by God. So one must seek joy within the boundaries of God’s moral standards.

⁷ tn The words “they will realize” are not in the Hebrew text; they are added here for stylistic reasons since this clause assumes the previous verb “to remember” or “to take into account.”

⁸ tn Heb “how I was broken by their adulterous heart.” The image of God being “broken” is startling, but perfectly natural within the metaphorical framework of God as offended husband. The idiom must refer to the intense grief that Israel’s unfaithfulness caused God. For a discussion of the syntax and semantics of the Hebrew text, see M. Greenberg, Ezekiel (AB), 1:134.

⁹ tn Heb adds “in their faces.”

¹⁰ tn Heb “the stumbling block of their iniquity.” This phrase is unique to the prophet Ezekiel.

¹¹ tn Or “I will not reveal myself to them.” The Hebrew word is used in a technical sense here of seeking an oracle from a prophet (2 Kgs 1:16; 3:11; 8:8).

¹² sn On this word here and in the following verse, see the note on the word hell in 5:22.