Deuteronomy 17:6

17:6 At the testimony of two or three witnesses they must be executed. They cannot be put to death on the testimony of only one witness.

Psalms 50:16-20

50:16 God says this to the evildoer: ¹ 

“How can you declare my commands,

and talk about my covenant? ² 

50:17 For you hate instruction

and reject my words. ³ 

50:18 When you see a thief, you join him; ⁴ 

you associate with men who are unfaithful to their wives. ⁵ 

50:19 You do damage with words, ⁶ 

and use your tongue to deceive. ⁷ 

50:20 You plot against your brother; ⁸ 

you slander your own brother. ⁹ 

Matthew 7:1-5

Do Not Judge

7:1 “Do not judge so that you will not be judged. ¹⁰  7:2 For by the standard you judge you will be judged, and the measure you use will be the measure you receive. ¹¹  7:3 Why ¹²  do you see the speck ¹³  in your brother’s eye, but fail to see ¹⁴  the beam of wood ¹⁵  in your own? 7:4 Or how can you say ¹⁶  to your brother, ‘Let me remove the speck from your eye,’ while there is a beam in your own? 7:5 You hypocrite! First remove the beam from your own eye, and then you can see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.

Matthew 23:25-28

23:25 “Woe to you, experts in the law ¹⁷  and you Pharisees, hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and the dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. 23:26 Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup, ¹⁸  so that the outside may become clean too!

23:27 “Woe to you, experts in the law ¹⁹  and you Pharisees, hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs that look beautiful on the outside but inside are full of the bones of the dead and of everything unclean. ²⁰  23:28 In the same way, on the outside you look righteous to people, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.

Romans 2:1-3

The Condemnation of the Moralist

2:1 ²¹ Therefore ²²  you are without excuse, ²³  whoever you are, ²⁴  when you judge someone else. ²⁵  For on whatever grounds ²⁶  you judge another, you condemn yourself, because you who judge practice the same things. 2:2 Now we know that God’s judgment is in accordance with truth ²⁷  against those who practice such things. 2:3 And do you think, ²⁸  whoever you are, when you judge ²⁹  those who practice such things and yet do them yourself, ³⁰  that you will escape God’s judgment?

Romans 2:21-25

2:21 therefore ³¹  you who teach someone else, do you not teach yourself? You who preach against stealing, do you steal? 2:22 You who tell others not to commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor ³²  idols, do you rob temples? 2:23 You who boast in the law dishonor God by transgressing the law! 2:24 For just as it is written, “the name of God is being blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.” ³³ 

2:25 For circumcision ³⁴  has its value if you practice the law, but ³⁵  if you break the law, ³⁶  your circumcision has become uncircumcision.

[50:16]  ¹ tn Heb “evil [one].” The singular adjective is used here in a representative sense; it refers to those within the larger covenant community who have blatantly violated the Lord’s commandments. In the psalms the “wicked” (רְשָׁעִים, rÿsha’im) are typically proud, practical atheists (Ps 10:2, 4, 11) who hate God’s commands, commit sinful deeds, speak lies and slander, and cheat others (Ps 37:21).

[50:16]  ² tn Heb “What to you to declare my commands and lift up my covenant upon your mouth?” The rhetorical question expresses sarcastic amazement. The Lord is shocked that such evildoers would give lip-service to his covenantal demands, for their lifestyle is completely opposed to his standards (see vv. 18-20).

[50:17]  ³ tn Heb “and throw my words behind you.”

[50:18]  ⁴ tn Heb “you run with him.”

[50:18]  ⁵ tn Heb “and with adulterers [is] your portion.”

[50:19]  ⁶ tn Heb “your mouth you send with evil.”

[50:19]  ⁷ tn Heb “and your tongue binds together [i.e., “frames”] deceit.”

[50:20]  ⁸ tn Heb “you sit, against your brother you speak.” To “sit” and “speak” against someone implies plotting against that person (see Ps 119:23).

[50:20]  ⁹ tn Heb “against the son of your mother you give a fault.”

[7:1]  ¹⁰ sn The point of the statement do not judge so that you will not be judged is that the standards we apply to others God applies to us. The passive verbs in this verse look to God’s action.

[7:2]  ¹¹ tn Grk “by [the measure] with which you measure it will be measured to you.”

[7:3]  ¹² tn Here δέ (de) has not been translated.

[7:3]  ¹³ sn The term translated speck refers to a small piece of wood, chaff, or straw; see L&N 3.66.

[7:3]  ¹⁴ tn Or “do not notice.”

[7:3]  ¹⁵ sn The term beam of wood refers to a very big piece of wood, the main beam of a building, in contrast to the speck in the other’s eye (L&N 7.78).

[7:4]  ¹⁶ tn Grk “how will you say?”

[23:25]  ¹⁷ tn Or “scribes.” See the note on the phrase “experts in the law” in 2:4.

[23:26]  ¹⁸ tc A very difficult textual problem is found here. The most important Alexandrian and Byzantine, as well as significant Western, witnesses (א B C L W 0102 0281 ˹³ 33 Ï lat co) have “and the dish” (καὶ τῆς παροψίδος, kai th" paroyido") after “cup,” while few important witnesses (D Θ Ë¹ 700 and some versional and patristic authorities) omit the phrase. On the one hand, scribes sometimes tended to eliminate redundancy; since “and the dish” is already present in v. 25, it may have been deleted in v. 26 by well-meaning scribes. On the other hand, as B. M. Metzger notes, the singular pronoun αὐτοῦ (autou, “its”) with τὸ ἐκτός (to ekto", “the outside”) in some of the same witnesses that have the longer reading (viz., B* ˹³ al) hints that their archetype lacked the words (TCGNT 50). Further, scribes would be motivated both to add the phrase from v. 25 and to change αὐτοῦ to the plural pronoun αὐτῶν (aujtwn, “their”). Although the external evidence for the shorter reading is not compelling in itself, combined with these two prongs of internal evidence, it is to be slightly preferred.

[23:27]  ¹⁹ tn Or “scribes.” See the note on the phrase “experts in the law” in 2:4.

[23:27]  ²⁰ sn This was an idiom for hypocrisy – just as the wall was painted on the outside but something different on the inside, so this person was not what he appeared or pretended to be (for discussion of a similar metaphor, see L&N 88.234; BDAG 1010 s.v. τοῖχος). See Deut 28:22; Ezek 13:10-16; Acts 23:3.

[2:1]  ²¹ sn Rom 2:1-29 presents unusual difficulties for the interpreter. There have been several major approaches to the chapter and the group(s) it refers to: (1) Rom 2:14 refers to Gentile Christians, not Gentiles who obey the Jewish law. (2) Paul in Rom 2 is presenting a hypothetical viewpoint: If anyone could obey the law, that person would be justified, but no one can. (3) The reference to “the ones who do the law” in 2:13 are those who “do” the law in the right way, on the basis of faith, not according to Jewish legalism. (4) Rom 2:13 only speaks about Christians being judged in the future, along with such texts as Rom 14:10 and 2 Cor 5:10. (5) Paul’s material in Rom 2 is drawn heavily from Diaspora Judaism, so that the treatment of the law presented here cannot be harmonized with other things Paul says about the law elsewhere (E. P. Sanders, Paul, the Law, and the Jewish People, 123); another who sees Rom 2 as an example of Paul’s inconsistency in his treatment of the law is H. Räisänen, Paul and the Law [WUNT], 101-9. (6) The list of blessings and curses in Deut 27–30 provide the background for Rom 2; the Gentiles of 2:14 are Gentile Christians, but the condemnation of Jews in 2:17-24 addresses the failure of Jews as a nation to keep the law as a whole (A. Ito, “Romans 2: A Deuteronomistic Reading,” JSNT 59 [1995]: 21-37).

[2:1]  ²² tn Some interpreters (e.g., C. K. Barrett, Romans [HNTC], 43) connect the inferential Διό (dio, “therefore”) with 1:32a, treating 1:32b as a parenthetical comment by Paul.

[2:1]  ²³ tn That is, “you have nothing to say in your own defense” (so translated by TCNT).

[2:1]  ²⁴ tn Grk “O man.”

[2:1]  ²⁵ tn Grk “Therefore, you are without excuse, O man, everyone [of you] who judges.”

[2:1]  ²⁶ tn Grk “in/by (that) which.”

[2:2]  ²⁷ tn Or “based on truth.”

[2:3]  ²⁸ tn Grk “do you think this,” referring to the clause in v. 3b.

[2:3]  ²⁹ tn Grk “O man, the one who judges.”

[2:3]  ³⁰ tn Grk “and do them.” The other words are supplied to bring out the contrast implied in this clause.

[2:21]  ³¹ tn The structure of vv. 21-24 is difficult. Some take these verses as the apodosis of the conditional clauses (protases) in vv. 17-20; others see vv. 17-20 as an instance of anacoluthon (a broken off or incomplete construction).

[2:22]  ³² tn Or “detest.”

[2:24]  ³³ sn A quotation from Isa 52:5.

[2:25]  ³⁴ sn Circumcision refers to male circumcision as prescribed in the OT, which was given as a covenant to Abraham in Gen 17:10-14. Its importance for Judaism can hardly be overstated: According to J. D. G. Dunn (Romans [WBC], 1:120) it was the “single clearest distinguishing feature of the covenant people.” J. Marcus has suggested that the terms used for circumcision (περιτομή, peritomh) and uncircumcision (ἀκροβυστία, akrobustia) were probably derogatory slogans used by Jews and Gentiles to describe their opponents (“The Circumcision and the Uncircumcision in Rome,” NTS 35 [1989]: 77-80).

[2:25]  ³⁵ tn This contrast is clearer and stronger in Greek than can be easily expressed in English.

[2:25]  ³⁶ tn Grk “if you should be a transgressor of the law.”