Genesis 19:24-25

19:24 Then the Lord rained down ¹  sulfur and fire ²  on Sodom and Gomorrah. It was sent down from the sky by the Lord. ³  19:25 So he overthrew those cities and all that region, ⁴  including all the inhabitants of the cities and the vegetation that grew ⁵  from the ground.

Isaiah 13:19

13:19 Babylon, the most admired ⁶  of kingdoms,

the Chaldeans’ source of honor and pride, ⁷ 

will be destroyed by God

just as Sodom and Gomorrah were. ⁸ 

Jeremiah 49:18

49:18 Edom will be destroyed like Sodom and Gomorrah

and the towns that were around them.

No one will live there.

No human being will settle in it,”

says the Lord.

Jeremiah 50:40

50:40 I will destroy Babylonia just like I did

Sodom and Gomorrah and the neighboring towns.

No one will live there. ⁹ 

No human being will settle in it,”

says the Lord. ¹⁰ 

Lamentations 4:6

ו (Vav)

4:6 The punishment ¹¹  of my people ¹² 

exceeded that of ¹³  of Sodom,

which was overthrown in a moment

with no one to help her. ¹⁴ 

Amos 4:11

4:11 “I overthrew some of you the way God ¹⁵  overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. ¹⁶ 

You were like a burning stick ¹⁷  snatched from the flames.

Still you did not come back to me.”

The Lord is speaking!

Zephaniah 2:6

2:6 The seacoast ¹⁸  will be used as pasture lands ¹⁹  by the shepherds

and as pens for their flocks.

[19:24]  ¹ tn The disjunctive clause signals the beginning of the next scene and highlights God’s action.

[19:24]  ² tn Or “burning sulfur” (the traditional “fire and brimstone”).

[19:24]  ³ tn Heb “from the Lord from the heavens.” The words “It was sent down” are supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[19:25]  ⁴ tn Or “and all the plain”; Heb “and all the circle,” referring to the “circle” or oval area of the Jordan Valley.

[19:25]  ⁵ tn Heb “and the vegetation of the ground.”

[13:19]  ⁶ tn Or “most beautiful” (NCV, TEV).

[13:19]  ⁷ tn Heb “the beauty of the pride of the Chaldeans.”

[13:19]  ⁸ tn Heb “and Babylon…will be like the overthrow by God of Sodom and Gomorrah.” On מַהְפֵּכַת (mahpekhat, “overthrow”) see the note on the word “destruction” in 1:7.

[50:40]  ⁹ tn Heb “‘Like [when] God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah and the neighboring towns,’ oracle of the Lord, ‘no man will live there.’” The Lord is speaking so the first person has been substituted for “God.” The sentence has again been broken up to better conform with contemporary English style.

[50:40]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[4:6]  ¹¹ tn The noun עֲוֹן (’avon) has a basic two-fold range of meanings: (1) basic meaning: “iniquity, sin” and (2) metonymical cause for effect meaning: “punishment for iniquity.”

[4:6]  ¹² tn Heb “the daughter of my people.”

[4:6]  ¹³ tn Heb “the sin of.” The noun חַטָּאת (khatta’t) often means “sin, rebellion,” but here it probably functions in a metonymical (cause for effect) sense: “punishment for sin” (e.g., Zech 14:19). The context focuses on the severity of the punishment of Jerusalem rather than the depths of its degradation and depravity that led to the judgment.

[4:6]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “without a hand turned.” The preposition ב (bet) after the verb חוּל (khul) in Hos 11:6 is adversative “the sword will turn against [Assyria’s] cities.” Other contexts with חוּל (khul) plus ב (bet) are not comparable (ב [bet] often being locative). However, it is not certain that hands must be adversarial as the sword clearly is in Hos 11:6. The present translation pictures the suddenness of Sodom’s overthrow as an easier fate than the protracted military campaign and subsequent exile and poverty of Judah’s survivor’s.

[4:11]  ¹⁵ tn Several English versions substitute the first person pronoun (“I”) here for stylistic reasons (e.g., NIV, NCV, TEV, CEV, NLT).

[4:11]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “like God’s overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah.” The divine name may be used in an idiomatic superlative sense here, in which case one might translate, “like the great [or “disastrous”] overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah.”

[4:11]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “like that which is burning.”

[2:6]  ¹⁸ tn The NIV here supplies the phrase “where the Kerethites dwell” (“Kerethites” is translated in v. 5 as “the people who came from Crete”) as an interpretive gloss, but this phrase is not in the MT. The NAB likewise reads “the coastland of the Cretans,” supplying “Cretans” here.

[2:6]  ¹⁹ tn The Hebrew phrase here is נְוֹת כְּרֹת (nÿvot kÿrot). The first word is probably a plural form of נָוָה (navah, “pasture”). The meaning of the second word is unclear. It may be a synonym of the preceding word (cf. NRSV “pastures, meadows for shepherds”); there is a word כַּר (kar, “pasture”) in biblical Hebrew, but elsewhere it forms its plural with a masculine ending. Some have suggested the meaning “wells” or “caves” used as shelters (cf. NEB “shepherds’ huts”); in this case, one might translate, “The seacoast will be used for pasturelands; for shepherds’ wells/caves.”