Deuteronomy 30:10

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 ¹  with your whole mind and being.

Leviticus 26:39-42

Restoration through Confession and Repentance

26:39 “‘As for the ones who remain among you, they will rot away because of ²  their iniquity in the lands of your enemies, and they will also rot away because of their ancestors’ ³  iniquities which are with them. 26:40 However, when ⁴  they confess their iniquity and their ancestors’ iniquity which they committed by trespassing against me, ⁵  by which they also walked ⁶  in hostility against me ⁷  26:41 (and I myself will walk in hostility against them and bring them into the land of their enemies), and ⁸  then their uncircumcised hearts become humbled and they make up for ⁹  their iniquity, 26:42 I will remember my covenant with Jacob and also my covenant with Isaac and also my covenant with Abraham, ¹⁰  and I will remember the land.

Leviticus 26:2

26:2 You must keep my Sabbaths and reverence ¹¹  my sanctuary. I am the Lord.

Leviticus 15:4

15:4 “‘Any bed the man with a discharge lies on will be unclean, ¹²  and any furniture he sits on will be unclean. ¹³ 

Leviticus 15:15

15:15 and the priest is to make one of them a sin offering ¹⁴  and the other a burnt offering. ¹⁵  So the priest ¹⁶  is to make atonement for him before the Lord for ¹⁷  his discharge.

Nehemiah 1:9

1:9 But if you repent ¹⁸  and obey ¹⁹  my commandments and do them, then even if your dispersed people are in the most remote location, ²⁰  I will gather them from there and bring them to the place I have chosen for my name to reside.’

Isaiah 55:6-7

55:6 Seek the Lord while he makes himself available; ²¹ 

call to him while he is nearby!

55:7 The wicked need to abandon their lifestyle ²² 

and sinful people their plans. ²³ 

They should return ²⁴  to the Lord, and he will show mercy to them, ²⁵ 

and to their God, for he will freely forgive them. ²⁶ 

Jeremiah 3:12-14

The Lord Calls on Israel and Judah to Repent

3:12 “Go and shout this message to my people in the countries in the north. ²⁷  Tell them,

‘Come back to me, wayward Israel,’ says the Lord.

‘I will not continue to look on you with displeasure. ²⁸ 

For I am merciful,’ says the Lord.

‘I will not be angry with you forever.

3:13 However, you must confess that you have done wrong, ²⁹ 

and that you have rebelled against the Lord your God.

You must confess ³⁰  that you have given yourself to ³¹  foreign gods under every green tree,

and have not obeyed my commands,’ says the Lord.

3:14 “Come back to me, my wayward sons,” says the Lord, “for I am your true master. ³²  If you do, ³³  I will take one of you from each town and two of you from each family group, and I will bring you back to Zion.

Jeremiah 29:12-14

29:12 When you call out to me and come to me in prayer, ³⁴  I will hear your prayers. ³⁵  29:13 When you seek me in prayer and worship, you will find me available to you. If you seek me with all your heart and soul, ³⁶  29:14 I will make myself available to you,’ ³⁷  says the Lord. ³⁸  ‘Then I will reverse your plight ³⁹  and will regather you from all the nations and all the places where I have exiled you,’ says the Lord. ⁴⁰  ‘I will bring you back to the place from which I exiled you.’

[30:10]  ¹ tn Heb “to the Lord your God.” See note on the second occurrence of the word “he” in v. 3.

[26:39]  ² tn Heb “in” (so KJV, ASV; also later in this verse).

[26:39]  ³ tn Heb “fathers’” (also in the following verse).

[26:40]  ⁴ tn Heb “And.” Many English versions take this to be a conditional clause (“if…”) though there is no conditional particle (see, e.g., NASB, NIV, NRSV; but see the very different rendering in B. A. Levine, Leviticus [JPSTC], 190). The temporal translation offered here (“when”) takes into account the particle אָז (’az, “then”), which occurs twice in v. 41. The obvious contextual contrast between vv. 39 and 40 is expressed by “however” in the translation.

[26:40]  ⁵ tn Heb “in their trespassing which they trespassed in me.” See the note on Lev 5:15, although the term is used in a more technical sense there in relation to the “guilt offering.”

[26:40]  ⁶ tn Heb “and also which they walked.”

[26:40]  ⁷ tn Heb “with me.”

[26:41]  ⁸ tn Heb “or then,” although the LXX has “then” and the Syriac “and then.”

[26:41]  ⁹ tn Heb “and then they make up for.” On the verb “make up for” see the note on v. 34 above.

[26:42]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “my covenant with Abraham I will remember.” The phrase “I will remember” has not been repeated in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[26:2]  ¹¹ tn Heb “and my sanctuary you shall fear.” Cf. NCV “respect”; CEV “honor.”

[15:4]  ¹² tn Heb “All the bed which the man with a discharge sits on it shall be unclean”; cf. NLT “Any bedding.”

[15:4]  ¹³ tn Heb “and all the vessel which he sits on it shall be unclean”; NASB “everything on which he sits.”

[15:15]  ¹⁴ sn See the note on Lev 4:3 regarding the term “sin offering.”

[15:15]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “and the priest shall make them one a sin offering and the one a burnt offering.” See the note on Lev 1:3 regarding the “burnt offering.”

[15:15]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “And the priest.” The Hebrew conjunction ו (vav, “and”) can be considered to have resultative force here.

[15:15]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “from”; see the note on 4:26.

[1:9]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “turn to me.”

[1:9]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “keep.” See the note on the word “obey” in Neh 1:5.

[1:9]  ²⁰ tn Heb “at the end of the heavens.”

[55:6]  ²¹ tn Heb “while he allows himself to be found.” The Niphal form has a tolerative force here.

[55:7]  ²² tn Heb “Let the wicked one abandon his way.” The singular is collective.

[55:7]  ²³ tn Heb “and the man of evil his thoughts.” The singular is collective.

[55:7]  ²⁴ tn Heb “let him return.” The singular is collective, meaning “let them.”

[55:7]  ²⁵ tn The imperfect with vav (ו) conjunctive after the jussive indicates purpose/result.

[55:7]  ²⁶ 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.

[3:12]  ²⁷ tn Heb “Go and proclaim these words to the north.” The translation assumes that the message is directed toward the exiles of northern Israel who have been scattered in the provinces of Assyria to the north.

[3:12]  ²⁸ tn Heb “I will not cause my face to fall on you.”

[3:13]  ²⁹ tn Heb “Only acknowledge your iniquity.”

[3:13]  ³⁰ tn The words “You must confess” are repeated to convey the connection. The Hebrew text has an introductory “that” in front of the second line and a coordinative “and” in front of the next two lines.

[3:13]  ³¹ tc MT reads דְּרָכַיִךְ (dÿrakhayikh, “your ways”), but the BHS editors suggest דּוֹדַיִךְ (dodayikh, “your breasts”) as an example of orthographic confusion. While the proposal makes sense, it remains a conjectural emendation since it is not supported by any actual manuscripts or ancient versions.

[3:14]  ³² tn Or “I am your true husband.”

[3:14]  ³³ tn The words, “If you do” are not in the text but are implicit in the connection of the Hebrew verb with the preceding.

[29:12]  ³⁴ tn Heb “come and pray to me.” This is an example of verbal hendiadys where two verb formally joined by “and” convey a main concept with the second verb functioning as an adverbial qualifier.

[29:12]  ³⁵ tn Or “You will call out to me and come to me in prayer and I will hear your prayers.” The verbs are vav consecutive perfects and can be taken either as unconditional futures or as contingent futures. See GKC 337 §112.kk and 494 §159.g and compare the usage in Gen 44:22 for the use of the vav consecutive perfects in contingent futures. The conditional clause in the middle of 29:13 and the deuteronomic theology reflected in both Deut 30:1-5 and 1 Kgs 8:46-48 suggest that the verbs are continent futures here. For the same demand for wholehearted seeking in these contexts which presuppose exile see especially Deut 30:2, 1 Kgs 8:48.

[29:13]  ³⁶ tn Or “If you wholeheartedly seek me”; Heb “You will seek me and find [me] because you will seek me with all your heart.” The translation attempts to reflect the theological nuances of “seeking” and “finding” and the psychological significance of “heart” which refers more to intellectual and volitional concerns in the OT than to emotional ones.

[29:14]  ³⁷ tn Heb “I will let myself be found by you.” For this nuance of the verb see BDB 594 s.v. מָצָא Niph.1.f and compare the usage in Isa 65:1; 2 Chr 15:2. The Greek version already noted that nuance when it translated the phrase “I will manifest myself to you.”

[29:14]  ³⁸ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[29:14]  ³⁹ tn Heb “restore your fortune.” Alternately, “I will bring you back from exile.” This idiom occurs twenty-six times in the OT and in several cases it is clearly not referring to return from exile but restoration of fortunes (e.g., Job 42:10; Hos 6:11–7:1; Jer 33:11). It is often followed as here by “regather” or “bring back” (e.g., Jer 30:3; Ezek 29:14) so it is often misunderstood as “bringing back the exiles.” The versions (LXX, Vulg., Tg., Pesh.) often translate the idiom as “to go away into captivity,” deriving the noun from שְׁבִי (shÿvi, “captivity”). However, the use of this expression in Old Aramaic documents of Sefire parallels the biblical idiom: “the gods restored the fortunes of the house of my father again” (J. A. Fitzmyer, The Aramaic Inscriptions of Sefire [BibOr], 100-101, 119-20). The idiom means “to turn someone's fortune, bring about change” or “to reestablish as it was” (HALOT 1386 s.v. 3.c). In Ezek 16:53 it is paralleled by the expression “to restore the situation which prevailed earlier.” This amounts to restitutio in integrum, which is applicable to the circumstances surrounding the return of the exiles.

[29:14]  ⁴⁰ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”