Acts 25:3

25:3 Requesting him to do them a favor against Paul, ¹  they urged Festus ²  to summon him to Jerusalem, planning an ambush ³  to kill him along the way.

Psalms 21:11

21:11 Yes, ⁴  they intend to do you harm; ⁵ 

they dream up a scheme, ⁶  but they do not succeed. ⁷ 

Psalms 37:32-33

37:32 Evil men set an ambush for the godly

and try to kill them. ⁸ 

37:33 But the Lord does not surrender the godly,

or allow them to be condemned in a court of law. ⁹ 

Proverbs 1:11-12

1:11 If they say, “Come with us!

We will ¹⁰  lie in wait ¹¹  to shed blood; ¹² 

we will ambush ¹³  an innocent person ¹⁴  capriciously. ¹⁵ 

1:12 We will swallow them alive ¹⁶  like Sheol, ¹⁷ 

those full of vigor ¹⁸  like those going down to the Pit.

Proverbs 1:16

1:16 for they ¹⁹  are eager ²⁰  to inflict harm, ²¹ 

and they hasten ²²  to shed blood. ²³ 

Proverbs 4:16

4:16 For they cannot sleep unless they cause harm; ²⁴ 

they are robbed of sleep ²⁵  until they make someone stumble. ²⁶ 

Isaiah 59:7

59:7 They are eager to do evil, ²⁷ 

quick to shed innocent blood. ²⁸ 

Their thoughts are sinful;

they crush and destroy. ²⁹ 

Romans 3:14-16

3:14 “Their mouths are ³⁰  full of cursing and bitterness.” ³¹ 

3:15 “Their feet are swift to shed blood,

3:16 ruin and misery are in their paths,

[25:3]  ¹ tn Grk “Requesting a favor against him”; the referent (Paul) has been specified in the translation, the understood direct object of “requesting” has been supplied, and the phrase “to do them” supplied for clarity.

[25:3]  ² tn Grk “him”; the referent (Festus) has been specified in the translation for clarity. The words “they urged him” are in v. 2 in the Greek text.

[25:3]  ³ sn Planning an ambush. The Jewish leadership had not forgotten the original plan of several years ago (see 23:16). They did not trust the Roman legal process, but preferred to take matters into their own hands.

[21:11]  ⁴ tn Or “for.”

[21:11]  ⁵ tn Heb “they extend against you harm.” The perfect verbal forms in v. 11 are taken as generalizing, stating factually what the king’s enemies typically do. Another option is to translate with the past tense (“they intended…planned”).

[21:11]  ⁶ sn See Ps 10:2.

[21:11]  ⁷ tn Heb “they lack ability.”

[37:32]  ⁸ tn Heb “an evil [one] watches the godly [one] and seeks to kill him.” The singular forms are used in a representative sense; the typical evildoer and godly individual are in view. The active participles describe characteristic behavior.

[37:33]  ⁹ tn Heb “the Lord does not abandon him into his hand or condemn him when he is judged.” The imperfects draw attention to the Lord’s characteristic behavior in this regard.

[1:11]  ¹⁰ tn This cohortative נֶאֶרְבָה (ne’ervah) could denote resolve (“We will lie in wait!”) or exhortation (“Let us lie in wait!”). These sinners are either expressing their determination to carry out a violent plan or they are trying to entice the lad to participate with them.

[1:11]  ¹¹ tn The verb אָרַב (’arav, “to lie in wait”) it is used for planning murder (Deut 19:11), kidnapping (Judg 21:20), or seduction (Prov 23:28).

[1:11]  ¹² tn Heb “for blood.” The term דָּם (dam, “blood”) functions as a metonymy of effect for “blood shed violently” through murder (HALOT 224 s.v. 4).

[1:11]  ¹³ tn Heb “lie in hiding.”

[1:11]  ¹⁴ tn The term “innocent” (נָקִי, naqi) intimates that the person to be attacked is harmless.

[1:11]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “without cause” (so KJV, NASB); NCV “just for fun.” The term חִנָּם (khinnam, “without cause”) emphasizes that the planned attack is completely unwarranted.

[1:12]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “lives.” The noun חַיִּים (khayyim, “lives”) functions as an adverbial accusative of manner: “alive.” The form is a plural of state, used to describe a condition of life which encompasses a long period of time – in this case a person’s entire life. Murder cuts short a person’s life.

[1:12]  ¹⁷ tn The noun שְׁאוֹל (shÿ’ol) can mean (1) “death,” cf. NCV; (2) “the grave,” cf. KJV, NIV, NLT (3) “Sheol” as the realm of departed spirits, cf. NAB “the nether world,” and (4) “extreme danger.” Here it is parallel to the noun בוֹר (vor, “the Pit”) so it is the grave or more likely “Sheol” (cf. ASV, NRSV). Elsewhere Sheol is personified as having an insatiable appetite and swallowing people alive as they descend to their death (e.g., Num 16:30, 33; Isa 5:14; Hab 2:5). In ancient Near Eastern literature, the grave is often personified in similar manner, e.g., in Ugaritic mythological texts Mot (= “death”) is referred to as “the great swallower.”

[1:12]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “and whole.” The vav (ו) is asseverative or appositional (“even”); it is omitted in the translation for the sake of style and smoothness. The substantival adjective תָּמִים (tamim, “whole; perfect; blameless”) is an adverbial accusative describing the condition and state of the object. Used in parallel to חַיִּים (khayyim, “alive”), it must mean “full of health” (BDB 1071 s.v. תָּמִים 2). These cutthroats want to murder a person who is full of vigor.

[1:16]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “their feet.” The term “feet” is a synecdoche of the part (= their feet) for the whole person (= they), stressing the eagerness of the robbers.

[1:16]  ²⁰ tn Heb “run.” The verb רוּץ (ruts, “run”) functions here as a metonymy of association, meaning “to be eager” to do something (BDB 930 s.v.).

[1:16]  ²¹ tn Heb “to harm.” The noun רַע (ra’) has a four-fold range of meanings: (1) “pain, harm” (Prov 3:30), (2) “calamity, disaster” (13:21), (3) “distress, misery” (14:32) and (4) “moral evil” (8:13; see BDB 948-49 s.v.). The parallelism with “swift to shed blood” suggests it means “to inflict harm, injury.”

[1:16]  ²² tn The imperfect tense verbs may be classified as habitual or progressive imperfects describing their ongoing continual activity.

[1:16]  ²³ tc The BHS editors suggest deleting this entire verse from MT because it does not appear in several versions (Codex B of the LXX, Coptic, Arabic) and is similar to Isa 59:7a. It is possible that it was a scribal gloss (intentional addition) copied into the margin from Isaiah. But this does not adequately explain the differences. It does fit the context well enough to be original.

[4:16]  ²⁴ sn The verb is רָעַע (ra’a’), which means “to do evil; to harm.” The verse is using the figure of hyperbole to stress the preoccupation of some people with causing trouble. R. L. Alden says, “How sick to find peace only at the price of another man’s misfortune” (Proverbs, 47).

[4:16]  ²⁵ sn Heb “their sleep is robbed/seized”; these expressions are metonymical for their restlessness in plotting evil.

[4:16]  ²⁶ sn The Hiphil imperfect (Kethib) means “cause to stumble.” This idiom (from hypocatastasis) means “bring injury/ruin to someone” (BDB 505-6 s.v. כָּשַׁל Hiph.1).

[59:7]  ²⁷ tn Heb “their feet run to evil.”

[59:7]  ²⁸ tn Heb “they quickly pour out innocent blood.”

[59:7]  ²⁹ tn Heb “their thoughts are thoughts of sin, destruction and crushing [are] in their roadways.”

[3:14]  ³⁰ tn Grk “whose mouth is.” Because of the length and complexity of the Greek sentence, a new sentence was started here in the translation.

[3:14]  ³¹ sn A quotation from Ps 10:7.