1 Corinthians 14:20-22

14:20 Brothers and sisters, ¹  do not be children in your thinking. Instead, be infants in evil, but in your thinking be mature. 14:21 It is written in the law: “By people with strange tongues and by the lips of strangers I will speak to this people, yet not even in this way will they listen to me,” ²  says the Lord. 14:22 So then, tongues are a sign not for believers but for unbelievers. Prophecy, however, is not for unbelievers but for believers.

1 Corinthians 5:11

5:11 But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who calls himself a Christian ³  who is sexually immoral, or greedy, or an idolater, or verbally abusive, ⁴  or a drunkard, or a swindler. Do not even eat with such a person.

1 Corinthians 6:9

6:9 Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived! The sexually immoral, idolaters, adulterers, passive homosexual partners, ⁵  practicing homosexuals, ⁶ 

1 Corinthians 8:7

8:7 But this knowledge is not shared by all. And some, by being accustomed to idols in former times, eat this food as an idol sacrifice, and their conscience, because it is weak, is defiled.

Deuteronomy 9:12

9:12 And he said to me, “Get up, go down at once from here because your people whom you brought out of Egypt have sinned! They have quickly turned from the way I commanded them and have made for themselves a cast metal image.” ⁷ 

Deuteronomy 9:16-21

9:16 When I looked, you had indeed sinned against the Lord your God and had cast for yourselves a metal calf; ⁸  you had quickly turned aside from the way he ⁹  had commanded you! 9:17 I grabbed the two tablets, threw them down, ¹⁰  and shattered them before your very eyes. 9:18 Then I again fell down before the Lord for forty days and nights; I ate and drank nothing because of all the sin you had committed, doing such evil before the Lord as to enrage him. 9:19 For I was terrified at the Lord’s intense anger ¹¹  that threatened to destroy you. But he ¹²  listened to me this time as well. 9:20 The Lord was also angry enough at Aaron to kill him, but at that time I prayed for him ¹³  too. 9:21 As for your sinful thing ¹⁴  that you had made, the calf, I took it, melted it down, ¹⁵  ground it up until it was as fine as dust, and tossed the dust into the stream that flows down the mountain.

Psalms 106:19-20

106:19 They made an image of a calf at Horeb,

and worshiped a metal idol.

106:20 They traded their majestic God ¹⁶ 

for the image of an ox that eats grass.

Psalms 106:1

Psalm 106 ¹⁷ 

106:1 Praise the Lord!

Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good,

and his loyal love endures! ¹⁸ 

Psalms 5:1

Psalm 5 ¹⁹ 

For the music director, to be accompanied by wind instruments; ²⁰  a psalm of David.

5:1 Listen to what I say, ²¹  Lord!

Carefully consider my complaint! ²² 

[14:20]  ¹ tn Grk “brothers.” See note on the phrase “brothers and sisters” in 1:10.

[14:21]  ² sn A quotation from Isa 28:11-12.

[5:11]  ³ tn Grk “a brother,” but the Greek word “brother” may be used for “brother or sister,” “fellow Christian,” or “fellow member of the church.” Here the term “brother” broadly connotes familial relationships within the family of God (cf. BDAG 18 s.v. ἀδελφός 2.a).

[5:11]  ⁴ tn Or “a reviler”; BDAG 602 s.v. λοίδορος defines the term as “reviler, abusive person.”

[6:9]  ⁵ tn This term is sometimes rendered “effeminate,” although in contemporary English usage such a translation could be taken to refer to demeanor rather than behavior. BDAG 613 s.v. μαλακός 2 has “pert. to being passive in a same-sex relationship, effeminate esp. of catamites, of men and boys who are sodomized by other males in such a relationship.” L&N 88.281 states, “the passive male partner in homosexual intercourse – ‘homosexual.’ …As in Greek, a number of other languages also have entirely distinct terms for the active and passive roles in homosexual intercourse.” See also the discussion in G. D. Fee, First Corinthians (NICNT), 243-44. A number of modern translations have adopted the phrase “male prostitutes” for μαλακοί in 1 Cor 6:9 (NIV, NRSV, NLT) but this could be misunderstood by the modern reader to mean “males who sell their services to women,” while the term in question appears, at least in context, to relate to homosexual activity between males. Furthermore, it is far from certain that prostitution as commonly understood (the selling of sexual favors) is specified here, as opposed to a consensual relationship. Thus the translation “passive homosexual partners” has been used here.

[6:9]  ⁶ tn On this term BDAG 135 s.v. ἀρσενοκοίτης states, “a male who engages in sexual activity w. a pers. of his own sex, pederast 1 Cor 6:9…of one who assumes the dominant role in same-sex activity, opp. μαλακός…1 Ti 1:10; Pol 5:3. Cp. Ro 1:27.” L&N 88.280 states, “a male partner in homosexual intercourse – ‘homosexual.’…It is possible that ἀρσενοκοίτης in certain contexts refers to the active male partner in homosexual intercourse in contrast with μαλακός, the passive male partner.” Since there is a distinction in contemporary usage between sexual orientation and actual behavior, the qualification “practicing” was supplied in the translation, following the emphasis in BDAG.

[9:12]  ⁷ tc Heb “a casting.” The MT reads מַסֵּכָה (massekhah, “a cast thing”) but some mss and Smr add עֵגֶל (’egel, “calf”), “a molten calf” or the like (Exod 32:8). Perhaps Moses here omits reference to the calf out of contempt for it.

[9:16]  ⁸ tn On the phrase “metal calf,” see note on the term “metal image” in v. 12.

[9:16]  ⁹ tn Heb “the Lord.” See note on “he” in 9:3.

[9:17]  ¹⁰ tn The Hebrew text includes “from upon my two hands,” but as this seems somewhat obvious and redundant, it has been left untranslated for stylistic reasons.

[9:19]  ¹¹ tn Heb “the anger and the wrath.” Although many English versions translate as two terms, this construction is a hendiadys which serves to intensify the emotion (cf. NAB, TEV “fierce anger”).

[9:19]  ¹² tn Heb “the Lord.” See note on “he” in 9:3.

[9:20]  ¹³ tn Heb “Aaron.” The pronoun is used in the translation to avoid redundancy.

[9:21]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “your sin.” This is a metonymy in which the effect (sin) stands for the cause (the metal calf).

[9:21]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “burned it with fire.”

[106:20]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “their glory.” According to an ancient Hebrew scribal tradition, the text originally read “his glory” or “my glory.” In Jer 2:11 the Lord states that his people (Israel) exchanged “their glory” (a reference to the Lord) for worthless idols.

[106:1]  ¹⁷ sn Psalm 106. The psalmist recalls Israel’s long history of rebellion against God, despite his mighty saving deeds on their behalf.

[106:1]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “for forever [is] his loyal love.”

[5:1]  ¹⁹ sn Psalm 5. Appealing to God’s justice and commitment to the godly, the psalmist asks the Lord to intervene and deliver him from evildoers.

[5:1]  ²⁰ tn The meaning of the Hebrew word נְחִילוֹת (nÿkhilot), which occurs only here, is uncertain. Many relate the form to חָלִיל (khalil, “flute”).

[5:1]  ²¹ tn Heb “my words.”

[5:1]  ²² tn Or “sighing.” The word occurs only here and in Ps 39:3.