Deuteronomy 10:16

10:16 Therefore, cleanse ¹  your heart and stop being so stubborn! ² 

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, ³ 

people of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem.

If you do not, ⁴  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 9:26

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. ⁵  I will do so because none of the people of those nations are really circumcised in the Lord’s sight. ⁶  Moreover, none of the people of Israel ⁷  are circumcised when it comes to their hearts.” ⁸ 

Jeremiah 32:39

32:39 I will give them a single-minded purpose to live in a way that always shows respect for me. They will want to do that for ⁹  their own good and the good of the children who descend from them.

Ezekiel 11:19-20

11:19 I will give them one heart and I will put a new spirit within them; ¹⁰  I will remove the hearts of stone from their bodies ¹¹  and I will give them tender hearts, ¹²  11:20 so that they may follow my statutes and observe my regulations and carry them out. Then they will be my people, and I will be their God. ¹³ 

Ezekiel 36:26-27

36:26 I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit within you. I will remove the heart of stone ¹⁴  from your body and give you a heart of flesh. ¹⁵  36:27 I will put my Spirit within you; ¹⁶  I will take the initiative and you will obey my statutes ¹⁷  and carefully observe my regulations. ¹⁸ 

John 3:3-7

3:3 Jesus replied, ¹⁹  “I tell you the solemn truth, ²⁰  unless a person is born from above, ²¹  he cannot see the kingdom of God.” ²²  3:4 Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? He cannot enter his mother’s womb and be born a second time, can he?” ²³ 

3:5 Jesus answered, “I tell you the solemn truth, ²⁴  unless a person is born of water and spirit, ²⁵  he cannot enter the kingdom of God. 3:6 What is born of the flesh is flesh, ²⁶  and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. 3:7 Do not be amazed that I said to you, ‘You must all ²⁷  be born from above.’ ²⁸ 

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 ²⁹  by the Spirit ³⁰  and not by the written code. ³¹  This person’s ³²  praise is not from people but from God.

Romans 11:26

11:26 And so ³³  all Israel will be saved, as it is written:

“The Deliverer will come out of Zion;

he will remove ungodliness from Jacob.

Romans 11:2

11:2 God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew! Do you not know what the scripture says about Elijah, how he pleads with God against Israel?

Colossians 1:17

1:17 He himself is before all things and all things are held together ³⁴  in him.

Colossians 2:11

2:11 In him you also were circumcised – not, however, ³⁵  with a circumcision performed by human hands, but by the removal ³⁶  of the fleshly body, ³⁷  that is, ³⁸  through the circumcision done by Christ.

[10:16]  ¹ tn Heb “circumcise the foreskin of” (cf. KJV, ASV, NRSV). Reference to the Abrahamic covenant prompts Moses to recall the sign of that covenant, namely, physical circumcision (Gen 17:9-14). Just as that act signified total covenant obedience, so spiritual circumcision (cleansing of the heart) signifies more internally a commitment to be pliable and obedient to the will of God (cf. Deut 30:6; Jer 4:4; 9:26).

[10:16]  ² tn Heb “your neck do not harden again.” See note on the word “stubborn” in Deut 9:6.

[4:4]  ³ 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]  ⁴ tn Heb “lest.”

[9:26]  ⁵ 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]  ⁶ 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]  ⁷ tn Heb “house of Israel.”

[9:26]  ⁸ tn Heb “And all the house of Israel is uncircumcised of heart.”

[32:39]  ⁹ tn Heb “I will give to them one heart and one way to [= in order that they may] fear me all the days for good to them.” The phrase “one heart” refers both to unanimity of will and accord (cf. 1 Chr 12:38 [12:39 HT]; 2 Chr 30:12) and to singleness of purpose or intent (cf. Ezek 11:19 and see BDB 525 s.v. ֵלב 4 where reference is made to “inclinations, resolutions, and determinations of the will”). The phrase “one way” refers to one way of life or conduct (cf. BDB 203 s.v. דֶּרֶךְ 6.a where reference is made to moral action and character), a way of life that is further qualified by the goal of showing “fear, reverence, respect” for the Lord. The Hebrew sentence has been broken up to avoid a long complex sentence in English which is contrary to contemporary English style. However, an attempt has been made to preserve all the connections of the original.

[11:19]  ¹⁰ tc The MT reads “you”; many Hebrew mss along with the LXX and other ancient versions read “within them.”

[11:19]  ¹¹ tn Heb “their flesh.”

[11:19]  ¹² tn Heb “heart of flesh.”

[11:20]  ¹³ sn The expression They will be my people, and I will be their God occurs as a promise to Abraham (Gen 17:8), Moses (Exod 6:7), and the nation (Exod 29:45).

[36:26]  ¹⁴ sn That is, a heart which symbolizes a will that is stubborn and unresponsive (see 1 Sam 25:37). In Rabbinic literature a “stone” was associated with an evil inclination (b. Sukkah 52a).

[36:26]  ¹⁵ sn That is, a heart which symbolizes a will that is responsive and obedient to God.

[36:27]  ¹⁶ tn Or “in the midst of you.” The word “you” is plural.

[36:27]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “and I will do that which in my statutes you will walk.” The awkward syntax (verb “to do, act” + accusative sign + relative clause + prepositional phrase + second person verb) is unique, though Eccl 3:14 contains a similar construction. In the last line of that verse we read that “God acts so that (relative pronoun) they fear before him.” However, unlike Ezek 36:27, the statement has no accusative sign before the relative pronoun.

[36:27]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “and my laws you will guard and you will do them.” Jer 31:31-34 is parallel to this passage.

[3:3]  ¹⁹ tn Grk “answered and said to him.”

[3:3]  ²⁰ tn Grk “Truly, truly, I say to you.”

[3:3]  ²¹ tn The word ἄνωθεν (anwqen) has a double meaning, either “again” (in which case it is synonymous with παλίν [palin]) or “from above” (BDAG 92 s.v. ἄνωθεν). This is a favorite technique of the author of the Fourth Gospel, and it is lost in almost all translations at this point. John uses the word 5 times, in 3:3, 7; 3:31; 19:11 and 23. In the latter 3 cases the context makes clear that it means “from above.” Here (3:3, 7) it could mean either, but the primary meaning intended by Jesus is “from above.” Nicodemus apparently understood it the other way, which explains his reply, “How can a man be born when he is old? He can’t enter his mother’s womb a second time and be born, can he?” The author uses the technique of the “misunderstood question” often to bring out a particularly important point: Jesus says something which is misunderstood by the disciples or (as here) someone else, which then gives Jesus the opportunity to explain more fully and in more detail what he really meant.

[3:3]  ²² sn What does Jesus’ statement about not being able to see the kingdom of God mean within the framework of John’s Gospel? John uses the word kingdom (βασιλεία, basileia) only 5 times (3:3, 5; 18:36 [3x]). Only here is it qualified with the phrase of God. The fact that John does not stress the concept of the kingdom of God does not mean it is absent from his theology, however. Remember the messianic implications found in John 2, both the wedding and miracle at Cana and the cleansing of the temple. For Nicodemus, the term must surely have brought to mind the messianic kingdom which Messiah was supposed to bring. But Nicodemus had missed precisely this point about who Jesus was. It was the Messiah himself with whom Nicodemus was speaking. Whatever Nicodemus understood, it is clear that the point is this: He misunderstood Jesus’ words. He over-literalized them, and thought Jesus was talking about repeated physical birth, when he was in fact referring to new spiritual birth.

[3:4]  ²³ tn The grammatical structure of the question in Greek presupposes a negative reply.

[3:5]  ²⁴ tn Grk “Truly, truly, I say to you.”

[3:5]  ²⁵ tn Or “born of water and wind” (the same Greek word, πνεύματος [pneumatos], may be translated either “spirit/Spirit” or “wind”).

[3:6]  ²⁶ sn What is born of the flesh is flesh, i.e., what is born of physical heritage is physical. (It is interesting to compare this terminology with that of the dialogue in John 4, especially 4:23, 24.) For John the “flesh” (σάρξ, sarx) emphasizes merely the weakness and mortality of the creature – a neutral term, not necessarily sinful as in Paul. This is confirmed by the reference in John 1:14 to the Logos becoming “flesh.” The author avoids associating sinfulness with the incarnate Christ.

[3:7]  ²⁷ tn “All” has been supplied to indicate the plural pronoun in the Greek text.

[3:7]  ²⁸ tn Or “born again.” The same Greek word with the same double meaning occurs in v. 3.

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

[2:29]  ³⁰ 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]  ³¹ tn Grk “letter.”

[2:29]  ³² 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.

[11:26]  ³³ tn It is not clear whether the phrase καὶ οὕτως (kai Joutws, “and so”) is to be understood in a modal sense (“and in this way”) or in a temporal sense (“and in the end”). Neither interpretation is conclusive from a grammatical standpoint, and in fact the two may not be mutually exclusive. Some, like H. Hübner, who argue strongly against the temporal reading, nevertheless continue to give the phrase a temporal significance, saying that God will save all Israel in the end (Gottes Ich und Israel [FRLANT], 118).

[1:17]  ³⁴ tn BDAG 973 s.v. συνίστημι B.3 suggests “continue, endure, exist, hold together” here.

[2:11]  ³⁵ tn The terms “however” and “but” in this sentence were supplied in order to emphasize the contrast.

[2:11]  ³⁶ 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]  ³⁷ 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]  ³⁸ 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.