Deuteronomy 30:6

30:6 The Lord your God will also cleanse ¹  your heart and the hearts of your descendants ²  so that you may love him ³  with all your mind and being and so that you may live.

Jeremiah 4:4

4:4 Just as ritual circumcision cuts away the foreskin

as an external symbol of dedicated covenant commitment,

you must genuinely dedicate yourselves to the Lord

and get rid of everything that hinders your commitment to me, ⁴ 

people of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem.

If you do not, ⁵  my anger will blaze up like a flaming fire against you

that no one will be able to extinguish.

That will happen because of the evil you have done.”

Jeremiah 6:10

6:10 I answered, ⁶ 

“Who would listen

if I spoke to them and warned them? ⁷ 

Their ears are so closed ⁸ 

that they cannot hear!

Indeed, ⁹  what the Lord says is offensive to them.

They do not like it at all. ¹⁰ 

Jeremiah 9:25-26

9:25 The Lord says, “Watch out! ¹¹  The time is soon coming when I will punish all those who are circumcised only in the flesh. ¹²  9:26 That is, I will punish the Egyptians, the Judeans, the Edomites, the Ammonites, the Moabites, and all the desert people who cut their hair short at the temples. ¹³  I will do so because none of the people of those nations are really circumcised in the Lord’s sight. ¹⁴  Moreover, none of the people of Israel ¹⁵  are circumcised when it comes to their hearts.” ¹⁶ 

Ezekiel 44:7

44:7 When you bring foreigners, those uncircumcised in heart and in flesh, into my sanctuary, you desecrate ¹⁷  it – even my house – when you offer my food, the fat and the blood. You ¹⁸  have broken my covenant by all your abominable practices.

Acts 7:51

7:51 “You stubborn ¹⁹  people, with uncircumcised ²⁰  hearts and ears! ²¹  You are always resisting the Holy Spirit, like your ancestors ²²  did!

Romans 2:28-29

2:28 For a person is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision something that is outward in the flesh, 2:29 but someone is a Jew who is one inwardly, and circumcision is of the heart ²³  by the Spirit ²⁴  and not by the written code. ²⁵  This person’s ²⁶  praise is not from people but from God.

Galatians 5:6

5:6 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision carries any weight – the only thing that matters is faith working through love. ²⁷ 

Philippians 3:3

3:3 For we are the circumcision, ²⁸  the ones who worship by the Spirit of God, ²⁹  exult in Christ Jesus, and do not rely on human credentials ³⁰ 

Colossians 2:11

2:11 In him you also were circumcised – not, however, ³¹  with a circumcision performed by human hands, but by the removal ³²  of the fleshly body, ³³  that is, ³⁴  through the circumcision done by Christ.

[30:6]  ¹ 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]  ² tn Heb “seed” (so KJV, ASV).

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

[4:4]  ⁴ tn Heb “Circumcise yourselves to the Lord and remove the foreskin of your heart.” The translation is again an attempt to bring out the meaning of a metaphor. The mention of the “foreskin of the heart” shows that the passage is obviously metaphorical and involves heart attitude, not an external rite.

[4:4]  ⁵ tn Heb “lest.”

[6:10]  ⁶ tn These words are not in the text but are supplied in the translation for clarity.

[6:10]  ⁷ tn Or “To whom shall I speak? To whom shall I give warning? Who will listen?” Heb “Unto whom shall I speak and give warning that they may listen?”

[6:10]  ⁸ tn Heb “are uncircumcised.”

[6:10]  ⁹ tn Heb “Behold!”

[6:10]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “They do not take pleasure in it.”

[9:25]  ¹¹ tn Heb “Behold!”

[9:25]  ¹² tn Heb “punish all who are circumcised in the flesh.” The translation is contextually motivated to better bring out the contrast that follows.

[9:26]  ¹³ tn Heb “all those who are cut off on the side of the head who live in the desert.” KJV and some other English versions (e.g., NIV “who live in the desert in distant places”; NLT “who live in distant places”) have followed the interpretation that this is a biform of an expression meaning “end or remote parts of the [far] corners [of the earth].” This interpretation is generally abandoned by the more recent commentaries and lexicons (see, e.g. BDB 802 s.v. פֵּאָה 1 and HALOT 858 s.v. פֵּאָה 1.β). It occurs also in 25:33; 49:32.

[9:26]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “For all of these nations are uncircumcised.” The words “I will do so” are supplied in the translation to indicate the connection with the preceding statement.

[9:26]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “house of Israel.”

[9:26]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “And all the house of Israel is uncircumcised of heart.”

[44:7]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “to desecrate.”

[44:7]  ¹⁸ tc The Greek, Syriac, and Latin versions read “you.” The Masoretic text reads “they.”

[7:51]  ¹⁹ sn Traditionally, “stiff-necked people.” Now the critique begins in earnest.

[7:51]  ²⁰ tn The term ἀπερίτμητοι (aperitmhtoi, “uncircumcised”) is a NT hapax legomenon (occurs only once). See BDAG 101-2 s.v. ἀπερίτμητος and Isa 52:1.

[7:51]  ²¹ tn Or “You stubborn and obstinate people!” (The phrase “uncircumcised hearts and ears” is another figure for stubbornness.)

[7:51]  ²² tn Or “forefathers”; Grk “fathers.”

[2:29]  ²³ sn On circumcision is of the heart see Lev 26:41; Deut 10:16; Jer 4:4; Ezek 44:9.

[2:29]  ²⁴ tn Some have taken the phrase ἐν πνεύματι (en pneumati, “by/in [the] S/spirit”) not as a reference to the Holy Spirit, but referring to circumcision as “spiritual and not literal” (RSV).

[2:29]  ²⁵ tn Grk “letter.”

[2:29]  ²⁶ tn Grk “whose.” The relative pronoun has been replaced by the phrase “this person’s” and, because of the length and complexity of the Greek sentence, a new sentence was started in the translation.

[5:6]  ²⁷ tn Grk “but faith working through love.”

[3:3]  ²⁸ tn There is a significant wordplay here in the Greek text. In v. 2 a rare, strong word is used to describe those who were pro-circumcision (κατατομή, katatomh, “mutilation”; see BDAG 528 s.v.), while in v. 3 the normal word for circumcision is used (περιτομή, peritomh; see BDAG 807 s.v.). Both have τομή (the feminine form of the adjective τομός [tomo"], meaning “cutting, sharp”) as their root; the direction of the action of the former is down or off (from κατά, kata), hence the implication of mutilation or emasculation, while the direction of the action of the latter is around (from περί, peri). The similarity in sound yet wide divergence of meaning between the two words highlights in no uncertain terms the differences between Paul and his opponents.

[3:3]  ²⁹ tc The verb λατρεύω (latreuw; here the participial form, λατρεύοντες [latreuonte"]) either takes a dative direct object or no object at all, bearing virtually a technical nuance of “worshiping God” (see BDAG 587 s.v.). In this text, πνεύματι (pneumati) takes an instrumental force (“by the Spirit”) rather than functioning as object of λατρεύοντες. However, the word after πνεύματι is in question, no doubt because of the collocation with λατρεύοντες. Most witnesses, including some of the earliest and best representatives of the Alexandrian, Western, and Byzantine texts (א* A B C D² F G 0278^vid 33 1739 1881 Ï co Ambr), read θεοῦ (qeou; thus, “worship by the Spirit of God”). But several other important witnesses (א² D* P Ψ 075 365 1175 lat sy Chr) have the dative θεῷ (qew) here (“worship God by the Spirit”). Ì⁴⁶ is virtually alone in its omission of the divine name, probably due to an unintentional oversight. The dative θεῷ was most likely a scribal emendation intended to give the participle its proper object, and thus avoid confusion about the force of πνεύματι. Although the Church came to embrace the full deity of the Spirit, the NT does not seem to speak of worshiping the Spirit explicitly. The reading θεῷ thus appears to be a clarifying reading. On external and internal grounds, then, θεοῦ is the preferred reading.

[3:3]  ³⁰ tn Grk “have no confidence in the flesh.”

[2:11]  ³¹ tn The terms “however” and “but” in this sentence were supplied in order to emphasize the contrast.

[2:11]  ³² tn The articular noun τῇ ἀπεκδύσει (th apekdusei) is a noun which ends in -σις (-sis) and therefore denotes action, i.e., “removal.” Since the head noun is a verbal noun, the following genitive τοῦ σώματος (tou swmatos) is understood as an objective genitive, receiving the action of the head noun.

[2:11]  ³³ tn Grk “in the removal of the body of flesh.” The genitive τῆς σαρκός (th" sarko") has been translated as an attributive genitive, “fleshly body.”

[2:11]  ³⁴ tn The second prepositional phrase beginning with ἐν τῇ περιτομῇ (en th peritomh) is parallel to the prepositional phrase ἐν τῇ ἀπεκδύσει (en th apekdusei) and gives a further explanation of it. The words “that is” were supplied to bring out this force in the translation.