Exodus 20:15

20:15 “You shall not steal. ¹ 

Exodus 20:17

20:17 “You shall not covet ²  your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that belongs to your neighbor.” ³ 

Exodus 21:16

21:16 “Whoever kidnaps someone ⁴  and sells him, ⁵  or is caught still holding him, ⁶  must surely be put to death.

Proverbs 30:9

30:9 lest I become satisfied and act deceptively ⁷ 

and say, “Who is the Lord?”

Or lest I become poor and steal

and demean ⁸  the name of my God.

Jeremiah 7:9

7:9 You steal. ⁹  You murder. You commit adultery. You lie when you swear on oath. You sacrifice to the god Baal. You pay allegiance to ¹⁰  other gods whom you have not previously known.

Hosea 4:2

4:2 There is only cursing, lying, murder, stealing, and adultery.

They resort to violence and bloodshed. ¹¹ 

Zechariah 5:3

5:3 The speaker went on to say, “This is a curse ¹²  traveling across the whole earth. For example, according to the curse whoever steals ¹³  will be removed from the community; or on the other hand (according to the curse) whoever swears falsely will suffer the same fate.”

John 12:6

12:6 (Now Judas ¹⁴  said this not because he was concerned about the poor, but because he was a thief. As keeper of the money box, ¹⁵  he used to steal what was put into it.) ¹⁶ 

John 12:1

Jesus’ Anointing

12:1 Then, six days before the Passover, Jesus came to Bethany, where Lazarus lived, whom he ¹⁷  had raised from the dead.

Colossians 1:10-11

1:10 so that you may live ¹⁸  worthily of the Lord and please him in all respects ¹⁹  – bearing fruit in every good deed, growing in the knowledge of God, 1:11 being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might for the display of ²⁰  all patience and steadfastness, joyfully

[20:15]  ¹ sn This law protected the property of the Israelite citizen. See D. Little, “Exodus 20,15: ‘Thou Shalt Not Steal’,” Int 34 (1980): 399-405.

[20:17]  ² tn The verb חָמַד (khamad) focuses not on an external act but on an internal mental activity behind the act, the motivation for it. The word can be used in a very good sense (Ps 19:10; 68:16), but it has a bad connotation in contexts where the object desired is off limits. This command is aimed at curtailing the greedy desire for something belonging to a neighbor, a desire that leads to the taking of it or the attempt to take it. It was used in the story of the Garden of Eden for the tree that was desired.

[20:17]  ³ sn See further G. Wittenburg, “The Tenth Commandment in the Old Testament,” Journal for Theology in South Africa 21 (1978): 3-17: and E. W. Nicholson, “The Decalogue as the Direct Address of God,” VT 27 (1977): 422-33.

[21:16]  ⁴ tn Heb “a stealer of a man,” thus “anyone stealing a man.”

[21:16]  ⁵ sn The implication is that it would be an Israelite citizen who was kidnapped and sold to a foreign tribe or country (like Joseph). There was always a market for slaves. The crime would be in forcibly taking the individual away from his home and religion and putting him into bondage or death.

[21:16]  ⁶ tn Literally “and he is found in his hand” (KJV and ASV both similar), being not yet sold.

[30:9]  ⁷ tn The verb כָּחַשׁ (kakhash) means “to be disappointing; to deceive; to fail; to grow lean.” In the Piel stem it means “to deceive; to act deceptively; to cringe; to disappoint.” The idea of acting deceptively is illustrated in Hos 9:2 where it has the connotation of “disowning” or “refusing to acknowledge” (a meaning very close to its meaning here).

[30:9]  ⁸ tn The Hebrew verb literally means “to take hold of; to seize”; this produces the idea of doing violence to the reputation of God.

[7:9]  ⁹ tn Heb “Will you steal…then say, ‘We are safe’?” Verses 9-10 are one long sentence in the Hebrew text.

[7:9]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “You go/follow after.” See the translator’s note at 2:5 for an explanation of the idiom involved here.

[4:2]  ¹¹ tn Heb “they break out and bloodshed touches bloodshed.” The Hebrew term פָּרַץ (parats, “to break out”) refers to violent and wicked actions (BDB 829 s.v. פָּרַץ 7; HALOT 972 s.v. פרץ 6.c). It is used elsewhere in a concrete sense to describe breaking through physical barriers. Here it is used figuratively to describe breaking moral barriers and restraints (cf. TEV “Crimes increase, and there is one murder after another”).

[5:3]  ¹² tn The Hebrew word translated “curse” (אָלָה, ’alah) alludes to the covenant sanctions that attend the violation of God’s covenant with Israel (cf. Deut 29:12, 14, 20-21).

[5:3]  ¹³ sn Stealing and swearing falsely (mentioned later in this verse) are sins against mankind and God respectively and are thus violations of the two major parts of the Ten Commandments. These two stipulations (commandments 8 and 3) represent the whole law.

[12:6]  ¹⁴ tn Grk “he”; the referent (Judas) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[12:6]  ¹⁵ tn Grk “a thief, and having the money box.” Dividing the single Greek sentence improves the English style.

[12:6]  ¹⁶ sn This is a parenthetical note by the author. This is one of the indications in the gospels that Judas was of bad character before the betrayal of Jesus. John states that he was a thief and had responsibility for the finances of the group. More than being simply a derogatory note about Judas’ character, the inclusion of the note at this particular point in the narrative may be intended to link the frustrated greed of Judas here with his subsequent decision to betray Jesus for money. The parallel accounts in Matthew and Mark seem to indicate that after this incident Judas went away immediately and made his deal with the Jewish authorities to deliver up Jesus. Losing out on one source of sordid gain, he immediately went out and set up another.

[12:1]  ¹⁷ tn Grk “whom Jesus,” but a repetition of the proper name (Jesus) here would be redundant in the English clause structure, so the pronoun (“he”) is substituted in the translation.

[1:10]  ¹⁸ tn The infinitive περιπατῆσαι (peripathsai, “to walk, to live, to live one’s life”) is best taken as an infinitive of purpose related to “praying” (προσευχόμενοι, proseucomenoi) and “asking” (αἰτούμενοι, aitoumenoi) in v. 9 and is thus translated as “that you may live.”

[1:10]  ¹⁹ tn BDAG 129 s.v. ἀρεσκεία states that ἀρεσκείαν (areskeian) refers to a “desire to please εἰς πᾶσαν ἀ. to please (the Lord) in all respects Col 1:10.”

[1:11]  ²⁰ tn The expression “for the display of” is an attempt to convey in English the force of the Greek preposition εἰς (eis) in this context.