Genesis 13:13

13:13 (Now ¹  the people ²  of Sodom were extremely wicked rebels against the Lord.) ³ 

Genesis 18:20

18:20 So the Lord said, “The outcry against ⁴  Sodom and Gomorrah is so great and their sin so blatant ⁵ 

Genesis 19:5

19:5 They shouted to Lot, ⁶  “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us so we can have sex ⁷  with them!”

Leviticus 18:22

18:22 You must not have sexual intercourse with a male as one has sexual intercourse with a woman; ⁸  it is a detestable act. ⁹ 

Deuteronomy 23:17

Purity in Cultic Personnel

23:17 There must never be a sacred prostitute ¹⁰  among the young women ¹¹  of Israel nor a sacred male prostitute ¹²  among the young men ¹³  of Israel.

Deuteronomy 23:2

23:2 A person of illegitimate birth ¹⁴  may not enter the assembly of the Lord; to the tenth generation no one related to him may do so. ¹⁵ 

Deuteronomy 23:7

23:7 You must not hate an Edomite, for he is your relative; ¹⁶  you must not hate an Egyptian, for you lived as a foreigner ¹⁷  in his land.

Proverbs 16:18

16:18 Pride ¹⁸  goes ¹⁹  before destruction,

and a haughty spirit before a fall. ²⁰ 

Proverbs 18:12

18:12 Before destruction the heart ²¹  of a person is proud,

but humility comes ²²  before honor. ²³ 

Romans 1:26-27

1:26 For this reason God gave them over to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged the natural sexual relations for unnatural ones, ²⁴  1:27 and likewise the men also abandoned natural relations with women ²⁵  and were inflamed in their passions ²⁶  for one another. Men ²⁷  committed shameless acts with men and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.

Jude 1:7

1:7 So also ²⁸  Sodom and Gomorrah and the neighboring towns, ²⁹  since they indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire ³⁰  in a way similar to ³¹  these angels, ³²  are now displayed as an example by suffering the punishment of eternal fire.

[13:13]  ¹ tn Here is another significant parenthetical clause in the story, signaled by the vav (וו) disjunctive (translated “now”) on the noun at the beginning of the clause.

[13:13]  ² tn Heb “men.” However, this is generic in sense; it is unlikely that only the male residents of Sodom were sinners.

[13:13]  ³ tn Heb “wicked and sinners against the Lord exceedingly.” The description of the sinfulness of the Sodomites is very emphatic. First, two nouns are used to form a hendiadys: “wicked and sinners” means “wicked sinners,” the first word becoming adjectival. The text is saying these were no ordinary sinners; they were wicked sinners, the type that cause pain for others. Then to this phrase is added “against the Lord,” stressing their violation of the laws of heaven and their culpability. Finally, to this is added מְאֹד (mÿ’od, “exceedingly,” translated here as “extremely”).

[18:20]  ⁴ tn Heb “the outcry of Sodom,” which apparently refers to the outcry for divine justice from those (unidentified persons) who observe its sinful ways.

[18:20]  ⁵ tn Heb “heavy.”

[19:5]  ⁶ tn The Hebrew text adds “and said to him.” This is redundant in English and has not been translated for stylistic reasons.

[19:5]  ⁷ tn The Hebrew verb יָדַע (yada’, “to know”) is used here in the sense of “to lie with” or “to have sex with” (as in Gen 4:1). That this is indeed the meaning is clear from Lot’s warning that they not do so wickedly, and his willingness to give them his daughters instead.

[18:22]  ⁸ tn Heb “And with a male you shall not lay [as the] lyings of a woman” (see B. A. Levine, Leviticus [JPSTC], 123). The specific reference here is to homosexual intercourse between males.

[18:22]  ⁹ tn The Hebrew term תּוֹעֵבָה (to’evah, rendered “detestable act”) refers to the repugnant practices of foreigners, whether from the viewpoint of other peoples toward the Hebrews (e.g., Gen 43:32; 46:34; Exod 8:26) or of the Lord toward other peoples (see esp. Lev 18:26-27, 29-30). It can also designate, as here, detestable acts that might be perpetrated by the native peoples (it is used again in reference to homosexuality in Lev 20:13; cf. also its use for unclean food, Deut 14:3; idol worship, Isa 41:24; remarriage to a former wife who has been married to someone else in between, Deut 24:4).

[23:17]  ¹⁰ tn The Hebrew term translated “sacred prostitute” here (קְדֵשָׁה [qÿdeshah], from קַדֵשׁ [qadesh, “holy”]; cf. NIV “shrine prostitute”; NASB “cult prostitute”; NRSV, TEV, NLT “temple prostitute”) refers to the pagan fertility cults that employed female and male prostitutes in various rituals designed to evoke agricultural and even human fecundity (cf. Gen 38:21-22; 1 Kgs 14:24; 15:12; 22:47; 2 Kgs 23:7; Hos 4:14). The Hebrew term for a regular, noncultic (i.e., “secular”) female prostitute is זוֹנָה (zonah).

[23:17]  ¹¹ tn Heb “daughters.”

[23:17]  ¹² tn The male cultic prostitute was called קָדֵשׁ (qadesh; see note on the phrase “sacred prostitute” earlier in this verse). The colloquial Hebrew term for a “secular” male prostitute (i.e., a sodomite) is the disparaging epithet כֶּלֶב (kelev, “dog”) which occurs in the following verse (cf. KJV, ASV, NAB, NASB).

[23:17]  ¹³ tn Heb “sons.”

[23:2]  ¹⁴ tn Or “a person born of an illegitimate marriage.”

[23:2]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “enter the assembly of the Lord.” The phrase “do so” has been used in the translation for stylistic reasons to avoid redundancy.

[23:7]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “brother.”

[23:7]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “sojourner.”

[16:18]  ¹⁸ sn The two lines of this proverb are synonymous parallelism, and so there are parasynonyms. “Pride” is paired with “haughty spirit” (“spirit” being a genitive of specification); and “destruction” is matched with “a tottering, falling.”

[16:18]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “[is] before destruction.”

[16:18]  ²⁰ sn Many proverbs have been written in a similar way to warn against the inevitable disintegration and downfall of pride. W. McKane records an Arabic proverb: “The nose is in the heavens, the seat is in the mire” (Proverbs [OTL], 490).

[18:12]  ²¹ sn The term “heart” is a metonymy of subject, referring to the seat of the spiritual and intellectual capacities – the mind, the will, the motivations and intentions. Proud ambitions and intentions will lead to a fall.

[18:12]  ²² tn Heb “[is] before honor”; cf. CEV “humility leads to honor.”

[18:12]  ²³ sn The way to honor is through humility (e.g., Prov 11:2; 15:33; 16:18). The humility and exaltation of Jesus provides the classic example (Phil 2:1-10).

[1:26]  ²⁴ tn Grk “for their females exchanged the natural function for that which is contrary to nature.” The term χρῆσις (crhsi") has the force of “sexual relations” here (L&N 23.65).

[1:27]  ²⁵ tn Grk “likewise so also the males abandoning the natural function of the female.”

[1:27]  ²⁶ tn Grk “burned with intense desire” (L&N 25.16).

[1:27]  ²⁷ tn Grk “another, men committing…and receiving,” continuing the description of their deeds. Because of the length and complexity of the Greek sentence, a new sentence was started here in the translation.

[1:7]  ²⁸ tn Grk “as.”

[1:7]  ²⁹ tn Grk “the towns [or cities] surrounding them.”

[1:7]  ³⁰ tn Grk “strange flesh.” This phrase has been variously interpreted. It could refer to flesh of another species (such as angels lusting after human flesh). This would aptly describe the sin of the angels, but not easily explain the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah. It could refer to the homosexual practices of the Sodomites, but a difficulty arises from the use of ἕτερος ({etero"; “strange,” “other”). When this is to be distinguished from ἄλλος (allos, “another”) it suggests “another of a different kind.” If so, would that properly describe homosexual behavior? In response, the language could easily be compact: “pursued flesh other than what was normally pursued.” However, would this find an analogy in the lust of angels (such would imply that angels normally had sexual relations of some sort, but cf. Matt 22:30)? Another alternative is that the focus of the parallel is on the activity of the surrounding cities and the activity of the angels. This is especially plausible since the participles ἐκπορνεύσασαι (ekporneusasai, “having indulged in sexual immorality”) and ἀπελθοῦσαι (apelqousai, “having pursued”) have concord with “cities” (πόλεις, poleis), a feminine plural noun, rather than with Sodom and Gomorrah (both masculine nouns). If so, then their sin would not necessarily have to be homosexuality. However, most likely the feminine participles are used because of constructio ad sensum (construction according to sense). That is, since both Sodom and Gomorrah are cities, the feminine is used to imply that all the cities are involved. The connection with angels thus seems to be somewhat loose: Both angels and Sodom and Gomorrah indulged in heinous sexual immorality. Thus, whether the false teachers indulge in homosexual activity is not the point; mere sexual immorality is enough to condemn them.

[1:7]  ³¹ tn Or “in the same way as.”

[1:7]  ³² tn “Angels” is not in the Greek text; but the masculine demonstrative pronoun most likely refers back to the angels of v. 6.