Deuteronomy 7:6

7:6 For you are a people holy ¹  to the Lord your God. He ²  has chosen you to be his people, prized ³  above all others on the face of the earth.

Deuteronomy 14:2

14:2 For you are a people holy ⁴  to the Lord your God. He ⁵  has chosen you to be his people, prized ⁶  above all others on the face of the earth.

Deuteronomy 28:9

28:9 The Lord will designate you as his holy people just as he promised you, if you keep his commandments ⁷  and obey him. ⁸ 

Exodus 6:7

6:7 I will take you to myself for a people, and I will be your God. ⁹  Then you will know that I am the Lord your God, who brought you out from your enslavement to ¹⁰  the Egyptians.

Exodus 19:5-6

19:5 And now, if you will diligently listen to me ¹¹  and keep ¹²  my covenant, then you will be my ¹³  special possession ¹⁴  out of all the nations, for all the earth is mine, 19:6 and you will be to me ¹⁵  a kingdom of priests ¹⁶  and a holy nation.’ ¹⁷  These are the words that you will speak to the Israelites.”

Jeremiah 31:32-34

31:32 It will not be like the old ¹⁸  covenant that I made with their ancestors ¹⁹  when I delivered them ²⁰  from Egypt. For they violated that covenant, even though I was like a faithful husband to them,” ²¹  says the Lord. ²²  31:33 “But I will make a new covenant with the whole nation of Israel ²³  after I plant them back in the land,” ²⁴  says the Lord. ²⁵  “I will ²⁶  put my law within them ²⁷  and write it on their hearts and minds. ²⁸  I will be their God and they will be my people. ²⁹ 

31:34 “People will no longer need to teach their neighbors and relatives to know me. ³⁰  For all of them, from the least important to the most important, will know me,” ³¹  says the Lord. “For ³²  I will forgive their sin and will no longer call to mind the wrong they have done.”

Ezekiel 36:25-27

36:25 I will sprinkle you with pure water ³³  and you will be clean from all your impurities. I will purify you from all your idols. 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 ³⁴  from your body and give you a heart of flesh. ³⁵  36:27 I will put my Spirit within you; ³⁶  I will take the initiative and you will obey my statutes ³⁷  and carefully observe my regulations. ³⁸ 

Titus 2:14

2:14 He ³⁹  gave himself for us to set us free from every kind of lawlessness and to purify for himself a people who are truly his, ⁴⁰  who are eager to do good. ⁴¹ 

[7:6]  ¹ tn That is, “set apart.”

[7:6]  ² tn Heb “the Lord your God.” The pronoun has been used in the translation for stylistic reasons to avoid redundancy.

[7:6]  ³ tn Or “treasured” (so NIV, NRSV); NLT “his own special treasure.” The Hebrew term סְגֻלָּה (sÿgullah) describes Israel as God’s choice people, those whom he elected and who are most precious to him (cf. Exod 19:4-6; Deut 14:2; 26:18; 1 Chr 29:3; Ps 135:4; Eccl 2:8 Mal 3:17). See E. Carpenter, NIDOTTE 3:224.

[14:2]  ⁴ tn Or “set apart.”

[14:2]  ⁵ tn Heb “The Lord.” The pronoun has been used in the translation for stylistic reasons to avoid redundancy.

[14:2]  ⁶ tn Or “treasured.” The Hebrew term סְגֻלָּה (sÿgullah) describes Israel as God’s choice people, those whom he elected and who are most precious to him (cf. Exod 19:4-6; Deut 14:2; 26:18; 1 Chr 29:3; Ps 135:4; Eccl 2:8 Mal 3:17). See E. Carpenter, NIDOTTE 3:224.

[28:9]  ⁷ tn Heb “the commandments of the Lord your God.” See note on “he” in the previous verse.

[28:9]  ⁸ tn Heb “and walk in his ways” (so NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV, NLT).

[6:7]  ⁹ sn These covenant promises are being reiterated here because they are about to be fulfilled. They are addressed to the nation, not individuals, as the plural suffixes show. Yahweh was their God already, because they had been praying to him and he is acting on their behalf. When they enter into covenant with God at Sinai, then he will be the God of Israel in a new way (19:4-6; cf. Gen 17:7-8; 28:20-22; Lev 26:11-12; Jer 24:7; Ezek 11:17-20).

[6:7]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “from under the burdens of” (so KJV, NASB); NIV “from under the yoke of.”

[19:5]  ¹¹ tn Heb “listen to my voice.” The construction uses the imperfect tense in the conditional clause, preceded by the infinitive absolute from the same verb. The idiom “listen to the voice of” implies obedience, not just mental awareness of sound.

[19:5]  ¹² tn The verb is a perfect tense with vav (ו) consecutive; it continues the idea in the protasis of the sentence: “and [if you will] keep.”

[19:5]  ¹³ tn The lamed preposition expresses possession here: “to me” means “my.”

[19:5]  ¹⁴ tn The noun is סְגֻלָּה (sÿgullah), which means a special possession. Israel was to be God’s special possession, but the prophets will later narrow it to the faithful remnant. All the nations belong to God, but Israel was to stand in a place of special privilege and enormous responsibility. See Deut 7:6; 14:2; 26:18; Ps 135:4; and Mal 3:17. See M. Greenburg, “Hebrew sÿgulla: Akkadian sikiltu,” JAOS 71 (1951): 172ff.

[19:6]  ¹⁵ tn Or “for me” (NIV, NRSV), or, if the lamed (ל) preposition has a possessive use, “my kingdom” (so NCV).

[19:6]  ¹⁶ tn The construction “a kingdom of priests” means that the kingdom is made up of priests. W. C. Kaiser (“Exodus,” EBC 2:417) offers four possible renderings of the expression: 1) apposition, viz., “kings, that is, priests; 2) as a construct with a genitive of specification, “royal priesthood”; 3) as a construct with the genitive being the attribute, “priestly kingdom”; and 4) reading with an unexpressed “and” – “kings and priests.” He takes the latter view that they were to be kings and priests. (Other references are R. B. Y. Scott, “A Kingdom of Priests (Exodus xix. 6),” OTS 8 [1950]: 213-19; William L. Moran, “A Kingdom of Priests,” The Bible in Current Catholic Thought, 7-20). However, due to the parallelism of the next description which uses an adjective, this is probably a construct relationship. This kingdom of God will be composed of a priestly people. All the Israelites would be living wholly in God’s service and enjoying the right of access to him. And, as priests, they would have the duty of representing God to the nations, following what they perceived to be the duties of priests – proclaiming God’s word, interceding for people, and making provision for people to find God through atonement (see Deut 33:9,10).

[19:6]  ¹⁷ tn They are also to be “a holy nation.” They are to be a nation separate and distinct from the rest of the nations. Here is another aspect of their duty. It was one thing to be God’s special possession, but to be that they had to be priestly and holy. The duties of the covenant will specify what it would mean to be a holy nation. In short, they had to keep themselves free from everything that characterized pagan people (S. R. Driver, Exodus, 171). So it is a bilateral covenant: they received special privileges but they must provide special services by the special discipline. See also H. Kruse, “Exodus 19:5 and the Mission of Israel,” North East Asian Journal of Theology 24/25 (1980): 239-42.

[31:32]  ¹⁸ tn The word “old” is not in the text but is implicit in the use of the word “new.” It is supplied in the translation for greater clarity.

[31:32]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “fathers.”

[31:32]  ²⁰ tn Heb “when I took them by the hand and led them out.”

[31:32]  ²¹ tn Or “I was their master.” See the study note on 3:14.

[31:32]  ²² tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[31:33]  ²³ tn Heb “with the house of Israel.” All commentators agree that the term here refers to both the whole nation which was divided into the house of Israel and the house of Judah in v. 30.

[31:33]  ²⁴ tn Heb “after those days.” Commentators are generally agreed that this refers to the return from exile and the repopulation of the land referred to in vv. 27-28 and not to something subsequent to the time mentioned in v. 30. This is the sequencing that is also presupposed in other new covenant passages such as Deut 30:1-6; Ezek 11:17-20; 36:24-28.

[31:33]  ²⁵ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[31:33]  ²⁶ tn Heb “‘But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after these days:’ says the Lord, ‘I will….’” The sentence has been reworded and restructured to avoid the awkwardness of the original style.

[31:33]  ²⁷ tn Heb “in their inward parts.” The Hebrew word here refers to the seat of the thoughts, emotions, and decisions (Jer 9:8 [9:7 HT]). It is essentially synonymous with “heart” in Hebrew psychological terms.

[31:33]  ²⁸ tn The words “and minds” is not in the text but is supplied in the translation to bring the English psychology more into line with the Hebrew where the “heart” is the center both of knowing/thinking/reflecting and deciding/willing.

[31:33]  ²⁹ sn Compare Jer 24:7; 30:22; 31:1 and see the study note on 30:2.

[31:34]  ³⁰ tn Heb “teach…, saying, ‘Know the Lord.’” The indirect quote has been chosen for stylistic reasons, i.e., to better parallel the following line.

[31:34]  ³¹ sn This statement should be understood against the background of Jer 8:8-9 where class distinctions were drawn and certain people were considered to have more awareness and responsibility for knowing the law and also Jer 5:1-5 and 9:3-9 where the sinfulness of Israel was seen to be universal across these class distinctions and no trust was to be placed in friends, neighbors, or relatives because all without distinction had cast off God’s yoke (i.e., refused to submit themselves to his authority).

[31:34]  ³² tn The Hebrew particle כִּי (ki) that introduces this clause refers to more than just the preceding clause (i.e., that all will know the Lord) but to all of vv. 31-34a (See BDB 474 s.v. כִּי 3.c).

[36:25]  ³³ sn The Lord here uses a metaphor from the realm of ritual purification. For the use of water in ritual cleansing, see Exod 30:19-20; Lev 14:51; Num 19:18; Heb 10:22.

[36:26]  ³⁴ 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]  ³⁵ sn That is, a heart which symbolizes a will that is responsive and obedient to God.

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

[36:27]  ³⁷ 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]  ³⁸ tn Heb “and my laws you will guard and you will do them.” Jer 31:31-34 is parallel to this passage.

[2:14]  ³⁹ tn Grk “who” (as a continuation of the previous clause).

[2:14]  ⁴⁰ tn Or “a people who are his very own.”

[2:14]  ⁴¹ tn Grk “for good works.”