Ezekiel 20:4

20:4 “Are you willing to pronounce judgment? ¹  Are you willing to pronounce judgment, son of man? Then confront them with the abominable practices of their fathers,

Ezekiel 22:2

22:2 “As for you, son of man, are you willing to pronounce judgment, ²  are you willing to pronounce judgment on the bloody city? ³  Then confront her with all her abominable deeds!

Jeremiah 1:10

1:10 Know for certain that ⁴  I hereby give you the authority to announce to nations and kingdoms that they will be ⁵  uprooted and torn down, destroyed and demolished, rebuilt and firmly planted.” ⁶ 

Jeremiah 1:1

The Superscription

1:1 The following is a record of what Jeremiah son of Hilkiah prophesied. ⁷  He was one of the priests who lived at Anathoth in the territory of the tribe of Benjamin.

Colossians 1:2-3

1:2 to the saints, the faithful ⁸  brothers and sisters ⁹  in Christ, at Colossae. Grace and peace to you ¹⁰  from God our Father! ¹¹ 

Paul’s Thanksgiving and Prayer for the Church

1:3 We always ¹²  give thanks to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you,

[20:4]  ¹ tn Heb “will you judge.” Here the imperfect form of the verb is probably used with a desiderative nuance. Addressed to the prophet, “judge” means to warn of or pronounce God’s impending judgment.

[22:2]  ² tn Heb “will you judge.” Here the imperfect form of the verb is probably used with a desiderative nuance. Addressed to the prophet, “judge” means to warn of or pronounce God’s impending judgment upon the city. See 20:4.

[22:2]  ³ tn The phrase “bloody city” is used of Nineveh in Nah 3:1.

[1:10]  ⁴ tn Heb “See!” The Hebrew imperative of the verb used here (רָאָה, ra’ah) functions the same as the particle in v. 9. See the translator’s note there.

[1:10]  ⁵ tn Heb “I appoint you today over nations and kingdoms to uproot….” The phrase refers to the Lord giving Jeremiah authority as a prophet to declare what he, the Lord, will do; it does not mean that Jeremiah himself will do these things. The expression involves a figure of speech where the subject of a declaration is stated instead of the declaration about it. Compare a similar use of the same figure in Gen 41:13.

[1:10]  ⁶ sn These three pairs represent the twofold nature of Jeremiah’s prophecies, prophecies of judgment and restoration. For the further programmatic use of these pairs for Jeremiah’s ministry see 18:7-10 and 31:27-28.

[1:1]  ⁷ tn Or “This is a record of what Jeremiah prophesied and did”; Heb “The words [or affairs] of Jeremiah.” The phrase could refer to either the messages of Jeremiah recorded in the book or to both his messages and the biographical (and autobiographical) narratives recorded about him in the book. Since the phrase is intended to serve as the title or superscription for the whole book and recurs again in 51:64 at the end of the book before the final appendix, it might refer to the latter. The expression “The words of [someone]” is a standard introductory formula (Deut 29:1[28:69]; 2 Sam 23:1; Amos 1:1; Eccl 1:1; Neh 1:1).

[1:2]  ⁸ tn Grk “and faithful.” The construction in Greek (as well as Paul’s style) suggests that the saints are identical to the faithful; hence, the καί (kai) is best left untranslated (cf. Eph 1:1). See ExSyn 281-82.

[1:2]  ⁹ tn Grk “brothers,” but the Greek word may be used for “brothers and sisters” or “fellow Christians” as here (cf. BDAG 18 s.v. ἀδελφός 1, where considerable nonbiblical evidence for the plural ἀδελφοί [adelfoi] meaning “brothers and sisters” is cited).

[1:2]  ¹⁰ tn Or “Grace to you and peace.”

[1:2]  ¹¹ tc Most witnesses, including some important ones (א A C F G I [P] 075 Ï it bo), read “and the Lord Jesus Christ” at the end of this verse, no doubt to conform the wording to the typical Pauline salutation. However, excellent and early witnesses (B D K L Ψ 33 81 1175 1505 1739 1881 al sa) lack this phrase. Since the omission is inexplicable as arising from the longer reading (otherwise, these mss would surely have deleted the phrase in the rest of the corpus Paulinum), it is surely authentic.

[1:3]  ¹² tn The adverb πάντοτε (pantote) is understood to modify the indicative εὐχαριστοῦμεν (eucaristoumen) because it precedes περὶ ὑμῶν (peri Jumwn) which probably modifies the indicative and not the participle προσευχόμενοι (proseucomenoi). But see 1:9 where the same expression occurs and περὶ ὑμῶν modifies the participle “praying” (προσευχόμενοι).