1 Kings 21:19

21:19 Say to him, ‘This is what the Lord says: “Haven’t you committed murder and taken possession of the property of the deceased?”’ Then say to him, ‘This is what the Lord says: “In the spot where dogs licked up Naboth’s blood they will also lick up your blood – yes, yours!”’”

Joshua 23:14-15

23:14 “Look, today I am about to die. ¹  You know with all your heart and being ²  that not even one of all the faithful promises the Lord your God made to you is left unfulfilled; every one was realized – not one promise is unfulfilled! ³  23:15 But in the same way every faithful promise the Lord your God made to you has been realized, ⁴  it is just as certain, if you disobey, that the Lord will bring on you every judgment ⁵  until he destroys you from this good land which the Lord your God gave you.

Isaiah 44:25-26

44:25 who frustrates the omens of the empty talkers ⁶ 

and humiliates ⁷  the omen readers,

who overturns the counsel of the wise men ⁸ 

and makes their advice ⁹  seem foolish,

44:26 who fulfills the oracles of his prophetic servants ¹⁰ 

and brings to pass the announcements ¹¹  of his messengers,

who says about Jerusalem, ¹²  ‘She will be inhabited,’

and about the towns of Judah, ‘They will be rebuilt,

her ruins I will raise up,’

Isaiah 48:3-5

48:3 “I announced events beforehand, ¹³ 

I issued the decrees and made the predictions; ¹⁴ 

suddenly I acted and they came to pass.

48:4 I did this ¹⁵  because I know how stubborn you are.

Your neck muscles are like iron

and your forehead like bronze. ¹⁶ 

48:5 I announced them to you beforehand;

before they happened, I predicted them for you,

so you could never say,

‘My image did these things,

my idol, my cast image, decreed them.’

Jeremiah 44:21-23

44:21 “The Lord did indeed remember and call to mind what you did! He remembered the sacrifices you and your ancestors, your kings, your leaders, and all the rest of the people of the land offered to other gods ¹⁷  in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem. ¹⁸  44:22 Finally the Lord could no longer endure your wicked deeds and the disgusting things you did. That is why your land has become the desolate, uninhabited ruin that it is today. That is why it has become a proverbial example used in curses. ¹⁹  44:23 You have sacrificed to other gods! You have sinned against the Lord! You have not obeyed the Lord! You have not followed his laws, his statutes, and his decrees! That is why this disaster that is evident to this day has happened to you.” ²⁰ 

Zechariah 1:4-6

1:4 “Do not be like your ancestors, to whom the former prophets called out, saying, ‘The Lord who rules over all says, “Turn now from your evil wickedness,”’ but they would by no means obey me,” says the Lord. 1:5 “As for your ancestors, where are they? And did the prophets live forever? 1:6 But have my words and statutes, which I commanded my servants the prophets, not outlived your fathers? ²¹  Then they paid attention ²²  and confessed, ‘The Lord who rules over all has indeed done what he said he would do to us, because of our sinful ways.’”

Matthew 24:35

24:35 Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away. ²³ 

[23:14]  ¹ tn Heb “go the way of all the earth.”

[23:14]  ² tn Or “soul.”

[23:14]  ³ tn Heb “one word from all these words which the Lord your God spoke to you has not fallen, the whole has come to pass for you, one word from it has not fallen.”

[23:15]  ⁴ tn Heb “and it will be as every good word which the Lord your God spoke to you has come to pass.”

[23:15]  ⁵ tn Heb “so the Lord will bring every injurious [or “evil”] word [or “thing”] upon you.”

[44:25]  ⁶ tc The Hebrew text has בַּדִּים (baddim), perhaps meaning “empty talkers” (BDB 95 s.v. III בַּד). In the four other occurrences of this word (Job 11:3; Isa 16:6; Jer 48:30; 50:36) the context does not make the meaning of the term very clear. Its primary point appears to be that the words spoken are meaningless or false. In light of its parallelism with “omen readers,” some have proposed an emendation to בָּרִים (barim, “seers”). The Mesopotamian baru-priests were divination specialists who played an important role in court life. See R. Wilson, Prophecy and Society in Ancient Israel, 93-98. Rather than supporting an emendation, J. N. Oswalt (Isaiah [NICOT], 2:189, n. 79) suggests that Isaiah used בַּדִּים purposively as a derisive wordplay on the Akkadian word baru (in light of the close similarity of the d and r consonants).

[44:25]  ⁷ tn Or “makes fools of” (NIV, NRSV); NAB and NASB both similar.

[44:25]  ⁸ tn Heb “who turns back the wise” (so NRSV); NIV “overthrows the learning of the wise”; TEV “The words of the wise I refute.”

[44:25]  ⁹ tn Heb “their knowledge” (so KJV, NAB, NASB, NRSV).

[44:26]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “the word of his servant.” The following context indicates that the Lord’s prophets are in view.

[44:26]  ¹¹ tn Heb “counsel.” The Hebrew term עֵצָה (’etsah) probably refers here to the divine plan as announced by the prophets. See HALOT 867 s.v. I עֵצָה.

[44:26]  ¹² map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[48:3]  ¹³ tn Heb “the former things beforehand I declared.”

[48:3]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “and from my mouth they came forth and I caused them to be heard.”

[48:4]  ¹⁵ tn The words “I did this” are supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons. In the Hebrew text v. 4 is subordinated to v. 3.

[48:4]  ¹⁶ sn The image is that of a person who has tensed the muscles of the face and neck as a sign of resolute refusal.

[44:21]  ¹⁷ tn The words “to other gods” are not in the text but are implicit from the context (cf. v. 17). They are supplied in the translation for clarity. It was not the act of sacrifice that was wrong but the recipient.

[44:21]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “The sacrifices which you sacrificed in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem, you and your fathers, your kings and your leaders and the people of the land, did not the Lord remember them and [did they not] come into his mind?” The question is again rhetorical and expects a positive answer. So it is rendered here as an affirmative statement for the sake of clarity and simplicity. An attempt has been made to shorten the long Hebrew sentence to better conform with contemporary English style.

[44:22]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “And/Then the Lord could no longer endure because of the evil of your deeds [and] because of the detestable things that you did and [or so] your land became a desolation and a waste and an occasion of a curse without inhabitant as this day.” The sentence has been broken up and restructured to better conform with contemporary English style, but an attempt has been made to preserve the causal and consequential connections.

[44:23]  ²⁰ tn Heb “Because you have sacrificed and you have sinned against the Lord and you have not listened to the voice of the Lord and in his laws, in his statutes, and in his decrees you have not walked, therefore this disaster has happened to you as this day.” The text has been broken down and restructured to better conform with contemporary English style.

[1:6]  ²¹ tc BHS suggests אֶתְכֶם (’etkhem, “you”) for the MT אֲבֹתֵיכֶם (’avotekhem, “your fathers”) to harmonize with v. 4. In v. 4 the ancestors would not turn but in v. 6 they appear to have done so. The subject in v. 6, however, is to be construed as Zechariah’s own listeners.

[1:6]  ²² tn Heb “they turned” (so ASV). Many English versions have “they repented” here; cf. CEV “they turned back to me.”

[24:35]  ²³ sn The words that Jesus predicts here will never pass away. They are more stable and lasting than creation itself. For this kind of image, see Isa 40:8; 55:10-11.