Genesis 17:23

17:23 Abraham took his son Ishmael and every male in his household (whether born in his house or bought with money) ¹  and circumcised them ²  on that very same day, just as God had told him to do.

Isaiah 1:10-16

1:10 Listen to the Lord’s word,

you leaders of Sodom! ³ 

Pay attention to our God’s rebuke, ⁴ 

people of Gomorrah!

1:11 “Of what importance to me are your many sacrifices?” ⁵ 

says the Lord.

“I am stuffed with ⁶  burnt sacrifices

of rams and the fat from steers.

The blood of bulls, lambs, and goats

I do not want. ⁷ 

1:12 When you enter my presence,

do you actually think I want this –

animals trampling on my courtyards? ⁸ 

1:13 Do not bring any more meaningless ⁹  offerings;

I consider your incense detestable! ¹⁰ 

You observe new moon festivals, Sabbaths, and convocations,

but I cannot tolerate sin-stained celebrations! ¹¹ 

1:14 I hate your new moon festivals and assemblies;

they are a burden

that I am tired of carrying.

1:15 When you spread out your hands in prayer,

I look the other way; ¹² 

when you offer your many prayers,

I do not listen,

because your hands are covered with blood. ¹³ 

1:16 ¹⁴ Wash! Cleanse yourselves!

Remove your sinful deeds ¹⁵ 

from my sight.

Stop sinning!

Matthew 7:6

7:6 Do not give what is holy to dogs or throw your pearls before pigs; otherwise they will trample them under their feet and turn around and tear you to pieces. ¹⁶ 

Romans 2:28-29

2:28 For a person is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision something that is outward in the flesh, 2:29 but someone is a Jew who is one inwardly, and circumcision is of the heart ¹⁷  by the Spirit ¹⁸  and not by the written code. ¹⁹  This person’s ²⁰  praise is not from people but from God.

Romans 2:1

The Condemnation of the Moralist

2:1 ²¹ Therefore ²²  you are without excuse, ²³  whoever you are, ²⁴  when you judge someone else. ²⁵  For on whatever grounds ²⁶  you judge another, you condemn yourself, because you who judge practice the same things.

Colossians 1:19

1:19 For God ²⁷  was pleased to have all his ²⁸  fullness dwell ²⁹  in the Son ³⁰ 

[17:23]  ¹ tn Heb “Ishmael his son and all born in his house and all bought with money, every male among the men of the house of Abraham.”

[17:23]  ² tn Heb “circumcised the flesh of their foreskin.” The Hebrew expression is somewhat pleonastic and has been simplified in the translation.

[1:10]  ³ sn Building on the simile of v. 9, the prophet sarcastically addresses the leaders and people of Jerusalem as if they were leaders and residents of ancient Sodom and Gomorrah. The sarcasm is appropriate, for if the judgment is comparable to Sodom’s, that must mean that the sin which prompted the judgment is comparable as well.

[1:10]  ⁴ tn Heb “to the instruction of our God.” In this context, which is highly accusatory and threatening, תּוֹרָה (torah, “law, instruction”) does not refer to mere teaching, but to corrective teaching and rebuke.

[1:11]  ⁵ tn Heb “Why to me the multitude of your sacrifices?” The sarcastic rhetorical question suggests that their many sacrifices are of no importance to the Lord. This phrase answers the possible objection that an Israelite could raise in response to God’s indictment: “But we are offering the sacrifices you commanded!”

[1:11]  ⁶ tn The verb שָׂבַע (sava’, “be satisfied, full”) is often used of eating and/or drinking one’s fill. See BDB 959 s.v. שָׂבַע. Here sacrifices are viewed, in typical ancient Near Eastern fashion, as food for the deity. God here declares that he has eaten and drunk, as it were, his fill.

[1:11]  ⁷ sn In the chiastic structure of the verse, the verbs at the beginning and end highlight God’s displeasure, while the heaping up of references to animals, fat, and blood in the middle lines hints at why God wants no more of their sacrifices. They have, as it were, piled the food on his table and he needs no more.

[1:12]  ⁸ tn Heb “When you come to appear before me, who requires this from your hand, trampling of my courtyards?” The rhetorical question sarcastically makes the point that God does not require this parade of livestock. The verb “trample” probably refers to the eager worshipers and their sacrificial animals walking around in the temple area.

[1:13]  ⁹ tn Or “worthless” (NASB, NCV, CEV); KJV, ASV “vain.”

[1:13]  ¹⁰ sn Notice some of the other practices that Yahweh regards as “detestable”: homosexuality (Lev 18:22-30; 20:13), idolatry (Deut 7:25; 13:15), human sacrifice (Deut 12:31), eating ritually unclean animals (Deut 14:3-8), sacrificing defective animals (Deut 17:1), engaging in occult activities (Deut 18:9-14), and practicing ritual prostitution (1 Kgs 14:23).

[1:13]  ¹¹ tn Heb “sin and assembly” (these two nouns probably represent a hendiadys). The point is that their attempts at worship are unacceptable to God because the people’s everyday actions in the socio-economic realm prove they have no genuine devotion to God (see vv. 16-17).

[1:15]  ¹² tn Heb “I close my eyes from you.”

[1:15]  ¹³ sn This does not just refer to the blood of sacrificial animals, but also the blood, as it were, of their innocent victims. By depriving the poor and destitute of proper legal recourse and adequate access to the economic system, the oppressors have, for all intents and purposes, “killed” their victims.

[1:16]  ¹⁴ sn Having demonstrated the people’s guilt, the Lord calls them to repentance, which will involve concrete action in the socio-economic realm, not mere emotion.

[1:16]  ¹⁵ sn This phrase refers to Israel’s covenant treachery (cf. Deut 28:10; Jer 4:4; 21:12; 23:2, 22; 25:5; 26:3; 44:22; Hos 9:15; Ps 28:4). In general, the noun ַמעַלְלֵיכֶם (ma’alleykhem) can simply be a reference to deeds, whether good or bad. However, Isaiah always uses it with a negative connotation (cf. 3:8, 10).

[7:6]  ¹⁶ tn Or “otherwise the latter will trample them under their feet and the former will turn around and tear you to pieces.” This verse is sometimes understood as a chiasm of the pattern a-b-b-a, in which the first and last clauses belong together (“dogs…turn around and tear you to pieces”) and the second and third clauses belong together (“pigs…trample them under their feet”).

[2:29]  ¹⁷ sn On circumcision is of the heart see Lev 26:41; Deut 10:16; Jer 4:4; Ezek 44:9.

[2:29]  ¹⁸ tn Some have taken the phrase ἐν πνεύματι (en pneumati, “by/in [the] S/spirit”) not as a reference to the Holy Spirit, but referring to circumcision as “spiritual and not literal” (RSV).

[2:29]  ¹⁹ tn Grk “letter.”

[2:29]  ²⁰ tn Grk “whose.” The relative pronoun has been replaced by the phrase “this person’s” and, because of the length and complexity of the Greek sentence, a new sentence was started in the translation.

[2:1]  ²¹ sn Rom 2:1-29 presents unusual difficulties for the interpreter. There have been several major approaches to the chapter and the group(s) it refers to: (1) Rom 2:14 refers to Gentile Christians, not Gentiles who obey the Jewish law. (2) Paul in Rom 2 is presenting a hypothetical viewpoint: If anyone could obey the law, that person would be justified, but no one can. (3) The reference to “the ones who do the law” in 2:13 are those who “do” the law in the right way, on the basis of faith, not according to Jewish legalism. (4) Rom 2:13 only speaks about Christians being judged in the future, along with such texts as Rom 14:10 and 2 Cor 5:10. (5) Paul’s material in Rom 2 is drawn heavily from Diaspora Judaism, so that the treatment of the law presented here cannot be harmonized with other things Paul says about the law elsewhere (E. P. Sanders, Paul, the Law, and the Jewish People, 123); another who sees Rom 2 as an example of Paul’s inconsistency in his treatment of the law is H. Räisänen, Paul and the Law [WUNT], 101-9. (6) The list of blessings and curses in Deut 27–30 provide the background for Rom 2; the Gentiles of 2:14 are Gentile Christians, but the condemnation of Jews in 2:17-24 addresses the failure of Jews as a nation to keep the law as a whole (A. Ito, “Romans 2: A Deuteronomistic Reading,” JSNT 59 [1995]: 21-37).

[2:1]  ²² tn Some interpreters (e.g., C. K. Barrett, Romans [HNTC], 43) connect the inferential Διό (dio, “therefore”) with 1:32a, treating 1:32b as a parenthetical comment by Paul.

[2:1]  ²³ tn That is, “you have nothing to say in your own defense” (so translated by TCNT).

[2:1]  ²⁴ tn Grk “O man.”

[2:1]  ²⁵ tn Grk “Therefore, you are without excuse, O man, everyone [of you] who judges.”

[2:1]  ²⁶ tn Grk “in/by (that) which.”

[1:19]  ²⁷ tn The noun “God” does not appear in the Greek text, but since God is the one who reconciles the world to himself (cf. 2 Cor 5:19), he is clearly the subject of εὐδόκησεν (eudokhsen).

[1:19]  ²⁸ tn The Greek article τό (to), insofar as it relates to God, may be translated as a possessive pronoun, i.e., “his.” BDAG 404 s.v. εὐδοκέω 1 translates the phrase as “all the fullness willed to dwell in him” thus leaving the referent as impersonal. Insofar as Paul is alluding to the so-called emanations from God this is acceptable. But the fact that “the fullness” dwells in a person (i.e., “in him”) seems to argue for the translation “his fullness” where “his” refers to God.

[1:19]  ²⁹ tn The aorist verb κατοικῆσαι (katoikhsai) could be taken as an ingressive, in which case it refers to the incarnation and may be translated as “begin to dwell, to take up residence.” It is perhaps better, though, to take it as a constative aorist and simply a reference to the fact that the fullness of God dwells in Jesus Christ. This is a permanent dwelling, though, not a temporary one, as the present tense in 2:9 makes clear.

[1:19]  ³⁰ tn Grk “him”; the referent (the Son; see v. 13) has been specified in the translation for clarity.