1 Samuel 12:21

12:21 You should not turn aside after empty things that can’t profit and can’t deliver, since they are empty. ¹ 

Jeremiah 2:8

2:8 Your priests ²  did not ask, ‘Where is the Lord?’ ³ 

Those responsible for teaching my law ⁴  did not really know me. ⁵ 

Your rulers rebelled against me.

Your prophets prophesied in the name of the god Baal. ⁶ 

They all worshiped idols that could not help them. ⁷ 

Jeremiah 2:11

2:11 Has a nation ever changed its gods

(even though they are not really gods at all)?

But my people have exchanged me, their glorious God, ⁸ 

for a god that cannot help them at all! ⁹ 

Jeremiah 7:8

7:8 “‘But just look at you! ¹⁰  You are putting your confidence in a false belief ¹¹  that will not deliver you. ¹² 

Jeremiah 16:19

16:19 Then I said, ¹³ 

“Lord, you give me strength and protect me.

You are the one I can run to for safety when I am in trouble. ¹⁴ 

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. ¹⁵ 

Jeremiah 23:32

23:32 I, the Lord, affirm ¹⁶  that I am opposed to those prophets who dream up lies and report them. They are misleading my people with their reckless lies. ¹⁷  I did not send them. I did not commission them. They are not helping these people at all. ¹⁸  I, the Lord, affirm it!” ¹⁹ 

Habakkuk 2:18

2:18 What good ²⁰  is an idol? Why would a craftsman make it? ²¹ 

What good is a metal image that gives misleading oracles? ²² 

Why would its creator place his trust in it ²³ 

and make ²⁴  such mute, worthless things?

Matthew 16:26

16:26 For what does it benefit a person ²⁵  if he gains the whole world but forfeits his life? Or what can a person give in exchange for his life?

Matthew 16:1

The Demand for a Sign

16:1 Now when the Pharisees ²⁶  and Sadducees ²⁷  came to test Jesus, ²⁸  they asked him to show them a sign from heaven. ²⁹ 

Matthew 4:8

4:8 Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their grandeur. ³⁰ 

Hebrews 13:9

13:9 Do not be carried away by all sorts of strange teachings. ³¹  For it is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace, not ritual meals, ³²  which have never benefited those who participated in them.

[12:21]  ¹ tn Or “useless” (so NIV, NRSV, NLT); NAB “nothing”; NASB “futile”; TEV “are not real.”

[2:8]  ² tn Heb “The priests…the ones who grasp my law…the shepherds…the prophets…they…”

[2:8]  ³ sn See the study note on 2:6.

[2:8]  ⁴ tn Heb “those who handle my law.”

[2:8]  ⁵ tn Or “were not committed to me.” The Hebrew verb rendered “know” refers to more than mere intellectual knowledge. It carries also the ideas of emotional and volitional commitment as well intimacy. See for example its use in contexts like Hos 4:1; 6:6.

[2:8]  ⁶ tn Heb “by Baal.”

[2:8]  ⁷ tn Heb “and they followed after those things [the word is plural] which do not profit.” The poetic structure of the verse, four lines in which a distinct subject appears at the beginning followed by a fifth line beginning with a prepositional phrase and no distinct subject, argues that this line is climactic and refers to all four classes enumerated in the preceding lines. See W. L. Holladay, Jeremiah (Hermeneia), 1:88-89. There may be a play or pun in the Hebrew text on the name for the god Baal (בַּעַל, ba’al) and the verb “cannot help you” (Heb “do not profit”) which is spelled יַעַל (ya’al).

[2:11]  ⁸ tn Heb “have exchanged their glory [i.e., the God in whom they glory].” This is a case of a figure of speech where the attribute of a person or thing is put for the person or thing. Compare the common phrase in Isaiah, the Holy One of Israel, obviously referring to the Lord, the God of Israel.

[2:11]  ⁹ tn Heb “what cannot profit.” The verb is singular and the allusion is likely to Baal. See the translator’s note on 2:8 for the likely pun or wordplay.

[7:8]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “Behold!”

[7:8]  ¹¹ tn Heb “You are trusting in lying words.” See the similar phrase in v. 4 and the note there.

[7:8]  ¹² tn Heb “not profit [you].”

[16:19]  ¹³ 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]  ¹⁴ 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]  ¹⁵ 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.”

[23:32]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[23:32]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “with their lies and their recklessness.” This is an example of hendiadys where two nouns (in this case a concrete and an abstract one) are joined by “and” but one is intended to be the adjectival modifier of the other.

[23:32]  ¹⁸ sn In the light of what has been said this is a rhetorical understatement; they are not only “not helping,” they are leading them to their doom (cf. vv. 19-22). This figure of speech is known as litotes.

[23:32]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[2:18]  ²⁰ tn Or “of what value.”

[2:18]  ²¹ tn Heb “so that the one who forms it fashions it?” Here כִּי (ki) is taken as resultative after the rhetorical question. For other examples of this use, see R. J. Williams, Hebrew Syntax, 73, §450.

[2:18]  ²² tn Heb “or a metal image, a teacher of lies.” The words “What good is” in the translation are supplied from the previous parallel line. “Teacher of lies” refers to the false oracles that the so-called god would deliver through a priest. See J. J. M. Roberts, Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah (OTL), 126.

[2:18]  ²³ tn Heb “so that the one who forms his image trusts in it?” As earlier in the verse, כִּי (ki) is resultative.

[2:18]  ²⁴ tn Heb “to make.”

[16:26]  ²⁵ tn Grk “a man,” but ἄνθρωπος (anqrwpo") is used in a generic sense here to refer to both men and women.

[16:1]  ²⁶ sn See the note on Pharisees in 3:7.

[16:1]  ²⁷ sn See the note on Sadducees in 3:7.

[16:1]  ²⁸ tn The object of the participle πειράζοντες (peirazontes) is not given in the Greek text but has been supplied here for clarity.

[16:1]  ²⁹ sn What exactly this sign would have been, given what Jesus was already doing, is not clear. But here is where the fence-sitters reside, refusing to commit to him.

[4:8]  ³⁰ tn Grk “glory.”

[13:9]  ³¹ tn Grk “by diverse and strange teachings.”

[13:9]  ³² tn Grk “foods,” referring to the meals associated with the OT sacrifices (see the contrast with the next verse; also 9:9-10; 10:1, 4, 11).