1 Kings 16:13

16:13 This happened because of all the sins which Baasha and his son Elah committed and which they made Israel commit. They angered the Lord God of Israel with their worthless idols. ¹ 

Psalms 31:6

31:6 I hate those who serve worthless idols, ² 

but I trust in the Lord.

Jeremiah 8:19

8:19 I hear my dear people ³  crying out ⁴ 

throughout the length and breadth of the land. ⁵ 

They are crying, ‘Is the Lord no longer in Zion?

Is her divine King ⁶  no longer there?’”

The Lord answers, ⁷ 

“Why then do they provoke me to anger with their images,

with their worthless foreign idols?” ⁸ 

Jeremiah 10:3

10:3 For the religion ⁹  of these people is worthless.

They cut down a tree in the forest,

and a craftsman makes it into an idol with his tools. ¹⁰ 

Jeremiah 10:8

10:8 The people of those nations ¹¹  are both stupid and foolish.

Instruction from a wooden idol is worthless! ¹² 

Jeremiah 14:22

14:22 Do any of the worthless idols ¹³  of the nations cause rain to fall?

Do the skies themselves send showers?

Is it not you, O Lord our God, who does this? ¹⁴ 

So we put our hopes in you ¹⁵ 

because you alone do all this.”

Jeremiah 16:19

16:19 Then I said, ¹⁶ 

“Lord, you give me strength and protect me.

You are the one I can run to for safety when I am in trouble. ¹⁷ 

Nations from all over the earth

will come to you and say,

‘Our ancestors had nothing but false gods –

worthless idols that could not help them at all. ¹⁸ 

Jeremiah 18:15

18:15 Yet my people have forgotten me

and offered sacrifices to worthless idols!

This makes them stumble along in the way they live

and leave the old reliable path of their fathers. ¹⁹ 

They have left them to walk in bypaths,

in roads that are not smooth and level. ²⁰ 

Acts 14:15

14:15 “Men, why are you doing these things? We too are men, with human natures ²¹  just like you! We are proclaiming the good news to you, so that you should turn ²²  from these worthless ²³  things to the living God, who made the heaven, the earth, ²⁴  the sea, and everything that is in them.

Romans 1:21-23

1:21 For although they knew God, they did not glorify him as God or give him thanks, but they became futile in their thoughts and their senseless hearts ²⁵  were darkened. 1:22 Although they claimed ²⁶  to be wise, they became fools 1:23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for an image resembling mortal human beings ²⁷  or birds or four-footed animals ²⁸  or reptiles.

[16:13]  ¹ tn Heb “angering the Lord God of Israel with their empty things.”

[31:6]  ² tn Heb “the ones who observe vain things of falsehood.” See Jonah 2:9.

[8:19]  ³ tn Heb “daughter of my people.” For the translation given here see 4:11 and the note on the phrase “dear people” there.

[8:19]  ⁴ tn Heb “Behold the voice of the crying of the daughter of my people.”

[8:19]  ⁵ tn Heb “Land of distances, i.e., of wide extent.” For parallel usage cf. Isa 33:17.

[8:19]  ⁶ tn Heb “her King” but this might be misunderstood by some to refer to the Davidic ruler even with the capitalization.

[8:19]  ⁷ tn The words, “The Lord would answer” are not in the text but are implicit from the words that follow. They are supplied in the translation for clarity. Another option would be to add “And I can just hear the Lord reply.”

[8:19]  ⁸ sn The people’s cry and the Lord’s interruption reflect the same argument that was set forth in the preceding chapter. They have misguided confidence that the Lord is with them regardless of their actions and he responds that their actions have provoked him to the point of judging them. See especially 7:4 and 7:30.

[10:3]  ⁹ tn Heb “statutes.” According to BDB 350 s.v. חֻקָּה 2.b it refers to the firmly established customs or practices of the pagan nations. Compare the usage in Lev 20:23; 2 Kgs 17:8. Here it is essentially equivalent to דֶּרֶךְ (derekh) in v. 1, which has already been translated “religious practices.”

[10:3]  ¹⁰ sn This passage is dripping with sarcasm. It begins by talking about the “statutes” of the pagan peoples as a “vapor” using a singular copula and singular predicate. Then it suppresses the subject, the idol, as though it were too horrible to mention, using only the predications about it. The last two lines read literally: “[it is] a tree which one cuts down from the forest; the work of the hands of a craftsman with his chisel.”

[10:8]  ¹¹ tn Or “Those wise people and kings are…” It is unclear whether the subject is the “they” of the nations in the preceding verse, or the wise people and kings referred to. The text merely has “they.”

[10:8]  ¹² tn Heb “The instruction of vanities [worthless idols] is wood.” The meaning of this line is a little uncertain. Various proposals have been made to make sense, most of which involve radical emendation of the text. For some examples see J. A. Thompson, Jeremiah (NICOT), 323-24, fn 6. However, this is probably a case of the bold predication that discussed in GKC 452 §141.d, some examples of which may be seen in Ps 109:4 “I am prayer,” and Ps 120:7 “I am peace.”

[14:22]  ¹³ tn The word הֶבֶל (hevel), often translated “vanities”, is a common pejorative epithet for idols or false gods. See already in 8:19 and 10:8.

[14:22]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “Is it not you, O Lord our God?” The words “who does” are supplied in the translation for English style.

[14:22]  ¹⁵ tn The rhetorical negatives are balanced by a rhetorical positive.

[16:19]  ¹⁶ tn The words “Then I said” are not in the text. They are supplied in the translation to show the shift from God, who has been speaking to Jeremiah, to Jeremiah, who here addresses God.

[16:19]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “O Lord, my strength and my fortress, my refuge in the day of trouble. The literal which piles up attributes is of course more forceful than the predications. However, piling up poetic metaphors like this adds to the length of the English sentence and risks lack of understanding on the part of some readers. Some rhetorical force has been sacrificed for the sake of clarity.

[16:19]  ¹⁸ tn Once again the translation has sacrificed some of the rhetorical force for the sake of clarity and English style: Heb “Only falsehood did our ancestors possess, vanity and [things in which?] there was no one profiting in them.”

[18:15]  ¹⁹ sn Heb “the ancient path.” This has already been referred to in Jer 6:16. There is another “old way” but it is the path trod by the wicked (cf. Job 22:15).

[18:15]  ²⁰ sn Heb “ways that are not built up.” This refers to the built-up highways. See Isa 40:4 for the figure. The terms “way,” “by-paths,” “roads” are, of course, being used here in the sense of moral behavior or action.

[14:15]  ²¹ tn Grk “with the same kinds of feelings,” L&N 25.32. BDAG 706 s.v. ὁμοιοπαθής translates the phrase “with the same nature τινί as someone.” In the immediate context, the contrast is between human and divine nature, and the point is that Paul and Barnabas are mere mortals, not gods.

[14:15]  ²² tn Grk “in order that you should turn,” with ἐπιστρέφειν (epistrefein) as an infinitive of purpose, but this is somewhat awkward contemporary English. To translate the infinitive construction “proclaim the good news, that you should turn,” which is much smoother English, could give the impression that the infinitive clause is actually the content of the good news, which it is not. The somewhat less formal “to get you to turn” would work, but might convey to some readers manipulativeness on the part of the apostles. Thus “proclaim the good news, so that you should turn,” is used, to convey that the purpose of the proclamation of good news is the response by the hearers. The emphasis here is like 1 Thess 1:9-10.

[14:15]  ²³ tn Or “useless,” “futile.” The reference is to idols and idolatry, worshiping the creation over the Creator (Rom 1:18-32). See also 1 Kgs 16:2, 13, 26; 2 Kgs 17:15; Jer 2:5; 8:19; 3 Macc 6:11.

[14:15]  ²⁴ tn Grk “and the earth, and the sea,” but καί (kai) has not been translated before “the earth” and “the sea” since contemporary English normally uses a coordinating conjunction only between the last two elements in a series of three or more.

[1:21]  ²⁵ tn Grk “heart.”

[1:22]  ²⁶ tn The participle φάσκοντες (faskonte") is used concessively here.

[1:23]  ²⁷ tn Grk “exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God in likeness of an image of corruptible man.” Here there is a wordplay on the Greek terms ἄφθαρτος (afqarto", “immortal, imperishable, incorruptible”) and φθαρτός (fqarto", “mortal, corruptible, subject to decay”).

[1:23]  ²⁸ sn Possibly an allusion to Ps 106:19-20.