Genesis 5:3

5:3 When ¹  Adam had lived 130 years he fathered a son in his own likeness, according to his image, and he named him Seth.

Genesis 8:21

8:21 And the Lord smelled the soothing aroma ²  and said ³  to himself, ⁴  “I will never again curse ⁵  the ground because of humankind, even though ⁶  the inclination of their minds ⁷  is evil from childhood on. ⁸  I will never again destroy everything that lives, as I have just done.

Nehemiah 9:24-26

9:24 Their descendants ⁹  entered and possessed the land. You subdued before them the Canaanites who were the inhabitants of the land. You delivered them into their hand, together with their kings and the peoples of the land, to deal with as they pleased. 9:25 They captured fortified cities and fertile land. They took possession of houses full of all sorts of good things – wells previously dug, vineyards, olive trees, and fruit trees in abundance. They ate until they were full ¹⁰  and grew fat. They enjoyed to the full your great goodness.

9:26 “Nonetheless they grew disobedient and rebelled against you; they disregarded your law. ¹¹  They killed your prophets who had solemnly admonished them in order to cause them to return to you. They committed atrocious blasphemies.

Job 14:4

14:4 Who can make ¹²  a clean thing come from an unclean? ¹³ 

No one!

Psalms 78:57

78:57 They were unfaithful ¹⁴  and acted as treacherously as ¹⁵  their ancestors;

they were as unreliable as a malfunctioning bow. ¹⁶ 

Isaiah 1:4

1:4 ¹⁷ The sinful nation is as good as dead, ¹⁸ 

the people weighed down by evil deeds.

They are offspring who do wrong,

children ¹⁹  who do wicked things.

They have abandoned the Lord,

and rejected the Holy One of Israel. ²⁰ 

They are alienated from him. ²¹ 

Isaiah 57:4

57:4 At whom are you laughing?

At whom are you opening your mouth

and sticking out your tongue?

You are the children of rebels,

the offspring of liars, ²² 

Ezekiel 20:21

20:21 “‘But the children ²³  rebelled against me, did not follow my statutes, did not observe my regulations by carrying them out (the one who obeys ²⁴  them will live by them), and desecrated my Sabbaths. I decided to pour out ²⁵  my rage on them and fully vent my anger against them in the wilderness.

Matthew 23:31-33

23:31 By saying this you testify against yourselves that you are descendants of those who murdered the prophets. 23:32 Fill up then the measure of your ancestors! 23:33 You snakes, you offspring of vipers! How will you escape being condemned to hell? ²⁶ 

Luke 11:48

11:48 So you testify that you approve of ²⁷  the deeds of your ancestors, ²⁸  because they killed the prophets ²⁹  and you build their ³⁰  tombs! ³¹ 

Acts 7:51-52

7:51 “You stubborn ³²  people, with uncircumcised ³³  hearts and ears! ³⁴  You are always resisting the Holy Spirit, like your ancestors ³⁵  did! 7:52 Which of the prophets did your ancestors ³⁶  not persecute? ³⁷  They ³⁸  killed those who foretold long ago the coming of the Righteous One, ³⁹  whose betrayers and murderers you have now become! ⁴⁰ 

[5:3]  ¹ tn Heb “and Adam lived 130 years.” In the translation the verb is subordinated to the following verb, “and he fathered,” and rendered as a temporal clause.

[8:21]  ² tn The Lord “smelled” (וַיָּרַח, vayyarakh) a “soothing smell” (רֵיחַ הַנִּיהֹחַ, reakh hannihoakh). The object forms a cognate accusative with the verb. The language is anthropomorphic. The offering had a sweet aroma that pleased or soothed. The expression in Lev 1 signifies that God accepts the offering with pleasure, and in accepting the offering he accepts the worshiper.

[8:21]  ³ tn Heb “and the Lord said.”

[8:21]  ⁴ tn Heb “in his heart.”

[8:21]  ⁵ tn Here the Hebrew word translated “curse” is קָלָל (qalal), used in the Piel verbal stem.

[8:21]  ⁶ tn The Hebrew particle כִּי (ki) can be used in a concessive sense (see BDB 473 s.v. כִּי), which makes good sense in this context. Its normal causal sense (“for”) does not fit the context here very well.

[8:21]  ⁷ tn Heb “the inclination of the heart of humankind.”

[8:21]  ⁸ tn Heb “from his youth.”

[9:24]  ⁹ tn Heb “the sons.”

[9:25]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “they ate and were sated.” This expression is a hendiadys. The first verb retains its full verbal sense, while the second functions adverbially: “they ate and were filled” = “they ate until they were full.”

[9:26]  ¹¹ tn Heb “they cast your law behind their backs.”

[14:4]  ¹² tn The expression is מִי־יִתֵּן (mi-yitten, “who will give”; see GKC 477 §151.b). Some commentators (H. H. Rowley and A. B. Davidson) wish to take this as the optative formula: “O that a clean might come out of an unclean!” But that does not fit the verse very well, and still requires the addition of a verb. The exclamation here simply implies something impossible – man is unable to attain purity.

[14:4]  ¹³ sn The point being made is that the entire human race is contaminated by sin, and therefore cannot produce something pure. In this context, since man is born of woman, it is saying that the woman and the man who is brought forth from her are impure. See Ps 51:5; Isa 6:5; and Gen 6:5.

[78:57]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “they turned back.”

[78:57]  ¹⁵ tn Or “acted treacherously like.”

[78:57]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “they turned aside like a deceitful bow.”

[1:4]  ¹⁷ sn Having summoned the witnesses and announced the Lord’s accusation against Israel, Isaiah mourns the nation’s impending doom. The third person references to the Lord in the second half of the verse suggest that the quotation from the Lord (cf. vv. 2-3) has concluded.

[1:4]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “Woe [to the] sinful nation.” The Hebrew term הוֹי, (hoy, “woe, ah”) was used in funeral laments (see 1 Kgs 13:30; Jer 22:18; 34:5) and carries the connotation of death. In highly dramatic fashion the prophet acts out Israel’s funeral in advance, emphasizing that their demise is inevitable if they do not repent soon.

[1:4]  ¹⁹ tn Or “sons” (NASB). The prophet contrasts four terms of privilege – nation, people, offspring, children – with four terms that depict Israel’s sinful condition in Isaiah’s day – sinful, evil, wrong, wicked (see J. A. Motyer, The Prophecy of Isaiah, 43).

[1:4]  ²⁰ sn Holy One of Israel is one of Isaiah’s favorite divine titles for God. It pictures the Lord as the sovereign king who rules over his covenant people and exercises moral authority over them.

[1:4]  ²¹ tn Heb “they are estranged backward.” The LXX omits this statement, which presents syntactical problems and seems to be outside the synonymous parallelistic structure of the verse.

[57:4]  ²² tn Heb “Are you not children of rebellion, offspring of a lie?” The rhetorical question anticipates the answer, “Of course you are!”

[20:21]  ²³ tn Heb “sons.”

[20:21]  ²⁴ tn Or “carries them out.”

[20:21]  ²⁵ tn Heb “and I said/thought to pour out.”

[23:33]  ²⁶ tn Grk “the judgment of Gehenna.”

[11:48]  ²⁷ tn Grk “you are witnesses and approve of.”

[11:48]  ²⁸ tn Or “forefathers”; Grk “fathers.”

[11:48]  ²⁹ tn Grk “them”; the referent (the prophets) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[11:48]  ³⁰ tn “Their,” i.e., the prophets.

[11:48]  ³¹ tc The majority of mss list a specific object (“their tombs”), filling out the sentence (although there are two different words for “tombs” among the mss, as well as different word orders: αὐτῶν τὰ μνημεῖα (autwn ta mnhmeia; found in A C W Θ Ψ 33 Ï) and τοὺς τάφους αὐτῶν (tou" tafou" autwn; found in Ë^1,[13] 2542 pc). This suggests that early copyists had no term in front of them but felt the verb needed an object. But since a wide distribution of early Alexandrian and Western mss lack these words (Ì⁷⁵ א B D L 579 1241 it sa), it is likely that they were not part of the original text of Luke. Nevertheless, the words “their tombs” are inserted in the translation because of requirements of English style.

[7:51]  ³² sn Traditionally, “stiff-necked people.” Now the critique begins in earnest.

[7:51]  ³³ tn The term ἀπερίτμητοι (aperitmhtoi, “uncircumcised”) is a NT hapax legomenon (occurs only once). See BDAG 101-2 s.v. ἀπερίτμητος and Isa 52:1.

[7:51]  ³⁴ tn Or “You stubborn and obstinate people!” (The phrase “uncircumcised hearts and ears” is another figure for stubbornness.)

[7:51]  ³⁵ tn Or “forefathers”; Grk “fathers.”

[7:52]  ³⁶ tn Or “forefathers”; Grk “fathers.”

[7:52]  ³⁷ sn Which…persecute. The rhetorical question suggests they persecuted them all.

[7:52]  ³⁸ tn Grk “And they.” Because of the difference between Greek style, which often begins sentences or clauses with “and,” and English style, which generally does not, καί (kai) has not been translated here.

[7:52]  ³⁹ sn The Righteous One is a reference to Jesus Christ.

[7:52]  ⁴⁰ sn Whose betrayers and murderers you have now become. The harsh critique has OT precedent (1 Kgs 19:10-14; Neh 9:26; 2 Chr 36:16).