Genesis 2:1-2

2:1 The heavens and the earth ¹  were completed with everything that was in them. ²  2:2 By ³  the seventh day God finished the work that he had been doing, ⁴  and he ceased ⁵  on the seventh day all the work that he had been doing.

Genesis 17:16

17:16 I will bless her and will give you a son through her. I will bless her and she will become a mother of nations. ⁶  Kings of countries ⁷  will come from her!”

Genesis 21:3

21:3 Abraham named his son – whom Sarah bore to him – Isaac. ⁸ 

Jeremiah 19:13

19:13 The houses in Jerusalem and the houses of the kings of Judah will be defiled by dead bodies ⁹  just like this place, Topheth. For they offered sacrifice to the stars ¹⁰  and poured out drink offerings to other gods on the roofs of those houses.’”

Zephaniah 1:5

1:5 I will remove ¹¹  those who worship the stars in the sky from their rooftops, ¹² 

those who swear allegiance to the Lord ¹³  while taking oaths in the name of ¹⁴  their ‘king,’ ¹⁵ 

Acts 7:42

7:42 But God turned away from them and gave them over ¹⁶  to worship the host ¹⁷  of heaven, as it is written in the book of the prophets: ‘It was not to me that you offered slain animals and sacrifices ¹⁸  forty years in the wilderness, was it, ¹⁹  house of Israel?

Romans 1:25

1:25 They ²⁰  exchanged the truth of God for a lie ²¹  and worshiped and served the creation ²²  rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.

[2:1]  ¹ tn See the note on the phrase “the heavens and the earth” in 1:1.

[2:1]  ² tn Heb “and all the host of them.” Here the “host” refers to all the entities and creatures that God created to populate the world.

[2:2]  ³ tn Heb “on/in the seventh day.”

[2:2]  ⁴ tn Heb “his work which he did [or “made”].”

[2:2]  ⁵ tn The Hebrew term שָׁבַּת (shabbat) can be translated “to rest” (“and he rested”) but it basically means “to cease.” This is not a rest from exhaustion; it is the cessation of the work of creation.

[17:16]  ⁶ tn Heb “she will become nations.”

[17:16]  ⁷ tn Heb “peoples.”

[21:3]  ⁸ tn Heb “the one born to him, whom Sarah bore to him, Isaac.” The two modifying clauses, the first introduced with an article and the second with the relative pronoun, are placed in the middle of the sentence, before the name Isaac is stated. They are meant to underscore that this was indeed an actual birth to Abraham and Sarah in fulfillment of the promise.

[19:13]  ⁹ tn The words “by dead bodies” is not in the text but is implicit from the context. They are supplied in the translation for clarity.

[19:13]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “the host of heaven.”

[1:5]  ¹¹ tn The words “I will remove” are repeated from v. 4b for stylistic reasons. In the Hebrew text vv. 4b-6 contain a long list of objects for the verb “I will remove” in v. 4b. In the present translation a new sentence was begun at the beginning of v. 5 in keeping with the tendency of contemporary English to use shorter sentences.

[1:5]  ¹² tn Heb “those who worship on their roofs the host of heaven.” The “host of heaven” included the sun, moon, planets, and stars, all of which were deified in the ancient Near East.

[1:5]  ¹³ tc The MT reads, “those who worship, those who swear allegiance to the Lord.” The original form of the LXX omits the phrase “those who worship”; it may have been accidentally repeated from the preceding line. J. J. M. Roberts prefers to delete as secondary the phrase “those who swear allegiance” (J. J. M. Roberts, Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah [OTL], 168).

[1:5]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “those who swear by.”

[1:5]  ¹⁵ tn The referent of “their king” is unclear. It may refer sarcastically to a pagan god (perhaps Baal) worshiped by the people. Some English versions (cf. NEB, NASB, NRSV) prefer to emend the text to “Milcom,” the name of an Ammonite god (following some LXX mss, Syriac, and Vulgate) or “Molech,” a god to whom the Israelites offered their children (cf. NIV, NLT). For a discussion of the options, see Adele Berlin, Zephaniah (AB 25A), 75-77.

[7:42]  ¹⁶ sn The expression and gave them over suggests similarities to the judgment on the nations described by Paul in Rom 1:18-32.

[7:42]  ¹⁷ tn Or “stars.”

[7:42]  ¹⁸ tn The two terms for sacrifices “semantically reinforce one another and are here combined essentially for emphasis” (L&N 53.20).

[7:42]  ¹⁹ tn The Greek construction anticipates a negative reply which is indicated in the translation by the ‘tag’ question, “was it?”

[1:25]  ²⁰ tn Grk “who.” The relative pronoun was converted to a personal pronoun and, because of the length and complexity of the Greek sentence, a new sentence was started here in the translation.

[1:25]  ²¹ tn Grk “the lie.”

[1:25]  ²² tn Or “creature, created things.”