Ezekiel 17:18-20

17:18 He despised the oath by breaking the covenant. Take note ¹  – he gave his promise ²  and did all these things – he will not escape!

17:19 “‘Therefore this is what the sovereign Lord says: As surely as I live, I will certainly repay him ³  for despising my oath and breaking my covenant! 17:20 I will throw my net over him and he will be caught in my snare; I will bring him to Babylon and judge him there because of the unfaithfulness he committed against me.

Jude 1:15

1:15 to execute judgment on ⁴  all, and to convict every person ⁵  of all their thoroughly ungodly deeds ⁶  that they have committed, ⁷  and of all the harsh words that ungodly sinners have spoken against him.” ⁸ 

Jude 1:2

1:2 May mercy, peace, and love be lavished on you! ⁹ 

Jude 1:20

1:20 But you, dear friends, by building yourselves up in your most holy faith, by praying in the Holy Spirit, ¹⁰ 

Jude 1:2

1:2 May mercy, peace, and love be lavished on you! ¹¹ 

Jude 1:13

1:13 wild sea waves, ¹²  spewing out the foam of ¹³  their shame; ¹⁴  wayward stars ¹⁵  for whom the utter depths of eternal darkness ¹⁶  have been reserved.

Isaiah 9:18-19

9:18 For ¹⁷  evil burned like a fire, ¹⁸ 

it consumed thorns and briers;

it burned up the thickets of the forest,

and they went up in smoke. ¹⁹ 

9:19 Because of the anger of the Lord who commands armies, the land was scorched, ²⁰ 

and the people became fuel for the fire. ²¹ 

People had no compassion on one another. ²² 

Jeremiah 38:23

38:23 “All your wives and your children will be turned over to the Babylonians. ²³  You yourself will not escape from them but will be captured by the ²⁴  king of Babylon. This city will be burned down.” ²⁵ 

Jeremiah 52:3

52:3 What follows is a record of what happened to Jerusalem and Judah because of the Lord’s anger when he drove them out of his sight. ²⁶  Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon.

[17:18]  ¹ tn The word הִנֵּה (hinneh, traditionally “behold”) indicates being aware of or taking notice of something.

[17:18]  ² sn Heb “hand.” “Giving one’s hand” is a gesture of promise (2 Kgs 10:15).

[17:19]  ³ tn Heb “place it on his head.”

[1:15]  ⁴ tn Grk “against” (κατά [kata] + genitive). English usage is satisfied with “on” at this point, but the parallel is lost in the translation to some degree, for the end of v. 15 says that this judgment is meted out on these sinners because they spoke against him (κατά + genitive).

[1:15]  ⁵ tn Or “soul.”

[1:15]  ⁶ tn Grk “of all their works of ungodliness.” The adverb “thoroughly” is part of the following verb “have committed.” See note on verb “committed” later in this verse.

[1:15]  ⁷ tn The verb in Greek does not simply mean “have committed,” but “have committed in an ungodly way.” The verb ἀσεβέω (asebew) is cognate to the noun ἀσέβεια (asebeia, “ungodliness”). There is no easy way to express this in English, since English does not have a single word that means the same thing. Nevertheless, the tenor of v. 15 is plainly seen, regardless of the translation.

[1:15]  ⁸ sn An apparent quotation from 1 En. 1:9. There is some doubt as to whether Jude is actually quoting from the text of 1 Enoch; the text here in Jude differs in some respects from the extant text of this pseudepigraphic book. It is sometimes suggested that Jude may instead have been quoting from oral tradition which had roots older than the written text.

[1:2]  ⁹ tn Grk “may mercy and peace and love be multiplied to you.”

[1:20]  ¹⁰ tn The participles in v. 20 have been variously interpreted. Some treat them imperativally or as attendant circumstance to the imperative in v. 21 (“maintain”): “build yourselves up…pray.” But they do not follow the normal contours of either the imperatival or attendant circumstance participles, rendering this unlikely. A better option is to treat them as the means by which the readers are to maintain themselves in the love of God. This both makes eminently good sense and fits the structural patterns of instrumental participles elsewhere.

[1:2]  ¹¹ tn Grk “may mercy and peace and love be multiplied to you.”

[1:13]  ¹² tn Grk “wild waves of the sea.”

[1:13]  ¹³ tn Grk “foaming, causing to foam.” The verb form is intensive and causative. BDAG 360 s.v. ἐπαφρίζω suggests the meaning “to cause to splash up like froth, cause to foam,” or, in this context, “waves casting up their own shameless deeds like (dirty) foam.”

[1:13]  ¹⁴ tn Grk “shames, shameful things.” It is uncertain whether shameful deeds or shameful words are in view. Either way, the picture has taken a decided turn: Though waterless clouds and fruitless trees may promise good things, but deliver nothing, wild sea-waves are portents of filth spewed forth from the belly of the sea.

[1:13]  ¹⁵ sn The imagery of a star seems to fit the nautical theme that Jude is developing. Stars were of course the guides to sailors at night, just as teachers are responsible to lead the flock through a benighted world. But false teachers, as wayward stars, are not fixed and hence offer unreliable, even disastrous guidance. They are thus both the dangerous reefs on which the ships could be destroyed and the false guides, leading them into these rocks. There is a special irony that these lights will be snuffed out, reserved for the darkest depths of eternal darkness.

[1:13]  ¹⁶ tn Grk “utter darkness of darkness for eternity.” See note on the word “utter” in v. 6.

[9:18]  ¹⁷ tn Or “Indeed” (cf. NIV “Surely”). The verb that introduces this verse serves as a discourse particle and is untranslated; see note on “in the future” in 2:2.

[9:18]  ¹⁸ sn Evil was uncontrollable and destructive, and so can be compared to a forest fire.

[9:18]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “and they swirled [with] the rising of the smoke” (cf. NRSV).

[9:19]  ²⁰ tn The precise meaning of the verb עְתַּם (’ÿtam), which occurs only here, is uncertain, though the context strongly suggests that it means “burn, scorch.”

[9:19]  ²¹ sn The uncontrollable fire of the people’s wickedness (v. 18) is intensified by the fire of the Lord’s judgment (v. 19). God allows (or causes) their wickedness to become self-destructive as civil strife and civil war break out in the land.

[9:19]  ²² tn Heb “men were not showing compassion to their brothers.” The idiom “men to their brothers” is idiomatic for reciprocity. The prefixed verbal form is either a preterite without vav (ו) consecutive or an imperfect used in a customary sense, describing continual or repeated behavior in past time.

[38:23]  ²³ tn Heb “Chaldeans.” See the study note on 21:4 for explanation.

[38:23]  ²⁴ tn Heb “you yourself will not escape from their hand but will be seized by [caught in] the hand of the king of Babylon.” Neither use of “hand” is natural to the English idiom.

[38:23]  ²⁵ tc This translation follows the reading of the Greek version and a few Hebrew mss. The majority of the Hebrew mss read “and you will burn down this city.” This reading is accepted by the majority of modern commentaries and English versions. Few of the commentaries, however, bother to explain the fact that the particle אֶת (’et), which normally marks the accusative object, is functioning here as the subject. For this point of grammar see BDB 85 s.v. I אֵת 1.b. Or this may be another case where אֵת introduces a new subject (see BDB 85 s.v. אֵת 3.α and see usage in 27:8; 36:22).

[52:3]  ²⁶ tn Heb “Surely (or “for”) because of the anger of the Lord this happened in Jerusalem and Judah until he drove them out from upon his face.” For the phrase “drive out of his sight,” see 7:15.