Deuteronomy 30:2-10

30:2 Then if you and your descendants ¹  turn to the Lord your God and obey him with your whole mind and being ²  just as ³  I am commanding you today, 30:3 the Lord your God will reverse your captivity and have pity on you. He will turn and gather you from all the peoples among whom he ⁴  has scattered you. 30:4 Even if your exiles are in the most distant land, ⁵  from there the Lord your God will gather you and bring you back. 30:5 Then he ⁶  will bring you to the land your ancestors ⁷  possessed and you also will possess it; he will do better for you and multiply you more than he did your ancestors. 30:6 The Lord your God will also cleanse ⁸  your heart and the hearts of your descendants ⁹  so that you may love him ¹⁰  with all your mind and being and so that you may live. 30:7 Then the Lord your God will put all these curses on your enemies, on those who hate you and persecute you. 30:8 You will return and obey the Lord, keeping all his commandments I am giving ¹¹  you today. 30:9 The Lord your God will make the labor of your hands ¹²  abundantly successful and multiply your children, ¹³  the offspring of your cattle, and the produce of your soil. For the Lord your God will once more ¹⁴  rejoice over you to make you prosperous ¹⁵  just as he rejoiced over your ancestors, 30:10 if you obey the Lord your God and keep his commandments and statutes that are written in this scroll of the law. But you must turn to him ¹⁶  with your whole mind and being.

Deuteronomy 30:1

The Results of Covenant Reaffirmation

30:1 “When you have experienced all these things, both the blessings and the curses ¹⁷  I have set before you, you will reflect upon them ¹⁸  in all the nations where the Lord your God has banished you.

Deuteronomy 8:1

The Lord’s Provision in the Desert

8:1 You must keep carefully all these commandments ¹⁹  I am giving ²⁰  you today so that you may live, increase in number, ²¹  and go in and occupy the land that the Lord promised to your ancestors. ²² 

Isaiah 55:7

55:7 The wicked need to abandon their lifestyle ²³ 

and sinful people their plans. ²⁴ 

They should return ²⁵  to the Lord, and he will show mercy to them, ²⁶ 

and to their God, for he will freely forgive them. ²⁷ 

Hosea 6:1-2

Superficial Repentance Breeds False Assurance of God’s Forgiveness

6:1 “Come on! Let’s return to the Lord!

He himself has torn us to pieces,

but he will heal us!

He has injured ²⁸  us,

but he will bandage our wounds!

6:2 He will restore ²⁹  us in a very short time; ³⁰ 

he will heal us in a little while, ³¹ 

so that we may live in his presence.

Hosea 14:1

Prophetic Call to Genuine Repentance

14:1 Return, O Israel, to the Lord your God,

for your sin has been your downfall! ³² 

Joel 2:12-13

An Appeal for Repentance

2:12 “Yet even now,” the Lord says,

“return to me with all your heart –

with fasting, weeping, and mourning.

Tear your hearts, ³³ 

not just your garments!”

2:13 Return to the Lord your God,

for he is merciful and compassionate,

slow to anger and boundless in loyal love ³⁴  – often relenting from calamitous punishment. ³⁵ 

[30:2]  ¹ tn Heb “sons” (so NASB); KJV, ASV, NAB, NIV, NRSV, NLT “children.”

[30:2]  ² tn Or “heart and soul” (also in vv. 6, 10).

[30:2]  ³ tn Heb “according to all.”

[30:3]  ⁴ tn Heb “the Lord your God.” The pronoun has been used in the translation for stylistic reasons to avoid redundancy.

[30:4]  ⁵ tn Heb “are at the farthest edge of the heavens.” The Hebrew term שָׁמַיִם (shamayim) may be translated “heaven(s)” or “sky” depending on the context.

[30:5]  ⁶ tn Heb “the Lord your God.” See note on the second occurrence of the word “he” in v. 3.

[30:5]  ⁷ tn Heb “fathers” (also later in this verse and in vv. 9, 20).

[30:6]  ⁸ tn Heb “circumcise” (so KJV, NAB, NIV, NRSV); TEV “will give you and your descendents obedient hearts.” See note on the word “cleanse” in Deut 10:16.

[30:6]  ⁹ tn Heb “seed” (so KJV, ASV).

[30:6]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “the Lord your God.” See note on the second occurrence of the word “he” in v. 3.

[30:8]  ¹¹ tn Heb “commanding”; NAB “which I now enjoin on you.”

[30:9]  ¹² tc The MT reads “hand” (singular). Most versions read the plural.

[30:9]  ¹³ tn Heb “the fruit of your womb” (so NAB, NIV); NRSV “of your body.”

[30:9]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “return and.” The Hebrew verb is used idiomatically here to indicate the repetition of the following action.

[30:9]  ¹⁵ tn The Hebrew text includes “for good.”

[30:10]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “to the Lord your God.” See note on the second occurrence of the word “he” in v. 3.

[30:1]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “the blessing and the curse.”

[30:1]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “and you bring (them) back to your heart.”

[8:1]  ¹⁹ tn The singular term (מִצְוָה, mitsvah) includes the whole corpus of covenant stipulations, certainly the book of Deuteronomy at least (cf. Deut 5:28; 6:1, 25; 7:11; 11:8, 22; 15:5; 17:20; 19:9; 27:1; 30:11; 31:5). The plural (מִצְוֹת, mitsot) refers to individual stipulations (as in vv. 2, 6).

[8:1]  ²⁰ tn Heb “commanding” (so NASB). For stylistic reasons, to avoid redundancy, “giving” has been used in the translation (likewise in v. 11).

[8:1]  ²¹ tn Heb “multiply” (so KJV, NASB, NLT); NIV, NRSV “increase.”

[8:1]  ²² tn Heb “fathers” (also in vv. 16, 18).

[55:7]  ²³ tn Heb “Let the wicked one abandon his way.” The singular is collective.

[55:7]  ²⁴ tn Heb “and the man of evil his thoughts.” The singular is collective.

[55:7]  ²⁵ tn Heb “let him return.” The singular is collective, meaning “let them.”

[55:7]  ²⁶ tn The imperfect with vav (ו) conjunctive after the jussive indicates purpose/result.

[55:7]  ²⁷ sn The appeal and promise of vv. 6-7 echoes the language of Deut 4:25-31; 30:1-10; and 1 Kgs 8:46-53, all of which anticipate the exile and speak of the prerequisites for restoration.

[6:1]  ²⁸ tn “has struck”; NRSV “struck down.”

[6:2]  ²⁹ tn The Piel of חָיָה (khayah) may mean: (1) to keep/preserve persons alive from the threat of premature death (1 Kgs 20:31; Ezek 13:18; 18:27); (2) to restore the dead to physical life (Deut 32:39; 1 Sam 2:6; cf. NCV “will put new life in us”); or (3) to restore the dying back to life from the threat of death (Ps 71:20; BDB 311 s.v. חָיָה).

[6:2]  ³⁰ tn Heb “after two days” (so KJV, NIV, NRSV). The expression “after two days” is an idiom meaning “after a short time” (see, e.g., Judg 11:4; BDB 399 s.v. יוֹם 5.a).

[6:2]  ³¹ tn Heb “on the third day” (so NASB, NIV, NRSV), which parallels “after two days” and means “in a little while.” The “2-3” sequence is an example of graded numerical parallelism (Prov 30:15-16, 18-19, 21-23, 24-28, 29-31). This expresses the unrepentant overconfidence of Israel that the Lord’s discipline of Israel would be relatively short and that he would restore them quickly.

[14:1]  ³² tn Heb “For you have stumbled in your iniquity”; NASB, NRSV “because of your iniquity.”

[2:12]  ³³ sn The figurative language calls for genuine repentance, and not merely external ritual that goes through the motions.

[2:13]  ³⁴ tn Heb “and great of loyal love.”

[2:13]  ³⁵ tn Heb “and he relents from calamity.”