Ezekiel 31:18

31:18 Which of the trees of Eden was like you in majesty and loftiness? You will be brought down with the trees of Eden to the lower parts of the earth; you will lie among the uncircumcised, with those killed by the sword! This is what will happen to Pharaoh and all his hordes, declares the sovereign Lord.’”

Ezekiel 32:19

32:19 Say to them, ¹  ‘Whom do you surpass in beauty? ²  Go down and be laid to rest with the uncircumcised!’

Ezekiel 32:21

32:21 The bravest of the warriors will speak to him from the midst of Sheol along with his allies, saying: ‘The uncircumcised have come down; they lie still, killed by the sword.’

Ezekiel 32:24-30

32:24 “Elam is there with all her hordes around her grave; all of them struck down by the sword. They went down uncircumcised to the lower parts of the earth, those who spread terror in the land of the living. Now they will bear their shame with those who descend to the pit. 32:25 Among the dead they have made a bed for her, along with all her hordes around her grave. ³  All of them are uncircumcised, killed by the sword, for their terror had spread in the land of the living. They bear their shame along with those who descend to the pit; they are placed among the dead.

32:26 “Meshech-Tubal is there, along with all her hordes around her grave. ⁴  All of them are uncircumcised, killed by the sword, for they spread their terror in the land of the living. 32:27 They do not lie with the fallen warriors of ancient times, ⁵  who went down to Sheol with their weapons of war, having their swords placed under their heads and their shields on their bones, ⁶  when the terror of these warriors was in the land of the living.

32:28 “But as for you, in the midst of the uncircumcised you will be broken, and you will lie with those killed by the sword.

32:29 “Edom is there with her kings and all her princes. Despite their might they are laid with those killed by the sword; they lie with the uncircumcised and those who descend to the pit.

32:30 “All the leaders of the north are there, along with all the Sidonians; despite their might they have gone down in shameful terror with the dead. They lie uncircumcised with those killed by the sword, and bear their shame with those who descend to the pit.

Ezekiel 44:7

44:7 When you bring foreigners, those uncircumcised in heart and in flesh, into my sanctuary, you desecrate ⁷  it – even my house – when you offer my food, the fat and the blood. You ⁸  have broken my covenant by all your abominable practices.

Ezekiel 44:9

44:9 This is what the sovereign Lord says: No foreigner, who is uncircumcised in heart and flesh among all the foreigners who are among the people of Israel, will enter into my sanctuary. ⁹ 

Leviticus 26:41

26:41 (and I myself will walk in hostility against them and bring them into the land of their enemies), and ¹⁰  then their uncircumcised hearts become humbled and they make up for ¹¹  their iniquity,

Leviticus 26:1

Exhortation to Obedience

26:1 “‘You must not make for yourselves idols, ¹²  so you must not set up for yourselves a carved image or a pillar, and you must not place a sculpted stone in your land to bow down before ¹³  it, for I am the Lord your God.

Leviticus 17:1

The Slaughter of Animals

17:1 The Lord spoke to Moses:

Leviticus 17:1

The Slaughter of Animals

17:1 The Lord spoke to Moses:

Jeremiah 6:10

6:10 I answered, ¹⁴ 

“Who would listen

if I spoke to them and warned them? ¹⁵ 

Their ears are so closed ¹⁶ 

that they cannot hear!

Indeed, ¹⁷  what the Lord says is offensive to them.

They do not like it at all. ¹⁸ 

Jeremiah 9:25-26

9:25 The Lord says, “Watch out! ¹⁹  The time is soon coming when I will punish all those who are circumcised only in the flesh. ²⁰  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. ²¹  I will do so because none of the people of those nations are really circumcised in the Lord’s sight. ²²  Moreover, none of the people of Israel ²³  are circumcised when it comes to their hearts.” ²⁴ 

John 8:24

8:24 Thus I told you ²⁵  that you will die in your sins. For unless you believe that I am he, ²⁶  you will die in your sins.”

Acts 7:51

7:51 “You stubborn ²⁷  people, with uncircumcised ²⁸  hearts and ears! ²⁹  You are always resisting the Holy Spirit, like your ancestors ³⁰  did!

Philippians 3:3

3:3 For we are the circumcision, ³¹  the ones who worship by the Spirit of God, ³²  exult in Christ Jesus, and do not rely on human credentials ³³ 

[32:19]  ¹ tc The LXX places this verse after v. 21.

[32:19]  ² tn Heb “pleasantness.”

[32:25]  ³ tn Heb “around him her graves,” but the expression is best emended to read “around her grave” (see vv. 23-24).

[32:26]  ⁴ tn Heb “around him her graves,” but the expression is best emended to read “around her grave” (see vv. 23-24).

[32:27]  ⁵ tc Heb “of the uncircumcised.” The LXX reads, probably correctly, “from of old” rather than “of the uncircumcised.” The phrases are very similar in spelling. The warriors of Meshech-Tubal are described as uncircumcised, so it would be odd for them to not be buried with the uncircumcised. Verse 28 specifically says that they would lie with the uncircumcised.

[32:27]  ⁶ tn Heb “and their iniquities were over their bones.” The meaning of this statement is unclear; in light of the parallelism (see “swords”) it is preferable to emend “their iniquities” to “their swords.” See L. C. Allen, Ezekiel (WBC), 2:135.

[44:7]  ⁷ tn Heb “to desecrate.”

[44:7]  ⁸ tc The Greek, Syriac, and Latin versions read “you.” The Masoretic text reads “they.”

[44:9]  ⁹ sn Tobiah, an Ammonite (Neh 13:8), was dismissed from the temple.

[26:41]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “or then,” although the LXX has “then” and the Syriac “and then.”

[26:41]  ¹¹ tn Heb “and then they make up for.” On the verb “make up for” see the note on v. 34 above.

[26:1]  ¹² sn For the literature regarding the difficult etymology and meaning of the term for “idols” (אֱלִילִם, ’elilim), see the literature cited in the note on Lev 19:4. It appears to be a diminutive play on words with אֵל (’el, “god, God”) and, perhaps at the same time, recalls a common Semitic word for “worthless, weak, powerless, nothingness.” Snaith suggests a rendering of “worthless godlings.”

[26:1]  ¹³ tn Heb “on.” The “sculpted stone” appears to be some sort of stone with images carved into (see B. A. Levine, Leviticus [JPSTC], 181, and J. E. Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 449).

[6:10]  ¹⁴ tn These words are not in the text but are supplied in the translation for clarity.

[6:10]  ¹⁵ 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]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “are uncircumcised.”

[6:10]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “Behold!”

[6:10]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “They do not take pleasure in it.”

[9:25]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “Behold!”

[9:25]  ²⁰ 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]  ²¹ 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]  ²² 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]  ²³ tn Heb “house of Israel.”

[9:26]  ²⁴ tn Heb “And all the house of Israel is uncircumcised of heart.”

[8:24]  ²⁵ tn Grk “thus I said to you.”

[8:24]  ²⁶ tn Grk “unless you believe that I am.” In this context there is an implied predicate nominative (“he”) following the “I am” phrase. What Jesus’ hearers had to acknowledge is that he was who he claimed to be, i.e., the Messiah (cf. 20:31). This view is also reflected in English translations like NIV (“if you do not believe that I am the one I claim to be”), NLT (“unless you believe that I am who I say I am”), and CEV (“if you don’t have faith in me for who I am”). For a different view that takes this “I am” and the one in 8:28 as nonpredicated (i.e., absolute), see R. E. Brown, John (AB), 1:533-38. Such a view refers sees the nonpredicated “I am” as a reference to the divine Name revealed in Exod 3:14, and is reflected in English translations like NAB (“if you do not believe that I AM, you will die in your sins”) and TEV (“you will die in your sins if you do not believe that ‘I Am Who I Am’”).

[7:51]  ²⁷ sn Traditionally, “stiff-necked people.” Now the critique begins in earnest.

[7:51]  ²⁸ 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]  ²⁹ tn Or “You stubborn and obstinate people!” (The phrase “uncircumcised hearts and ears” is another figure for stubbornness.)

[7:51]  ³⁰ tn Or “forefathers”; Grk “fathers.”

[3:3]  ³¹ 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]  ³² 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]  ³³ tn Grk “have no confidence in the flesh.”