Genesis 19:17

19:17 When they had brought them outside, they ¹  said, “Run ²  for your lives! Don’t look ³  behind you or stop anywhere in the valley! ⁴  Escape to the mountains or you will be destroyed!”

Proverbs 14:14

14:14 The backslider ⁵  will be paid back ⁶  from his own ways,

but a good person will be rewarded ⁷  for his.

Luke 17:31-32

17:31 On that day, anyone who is on the roof, ⁸  with his goods in the house, must not come down ⁹  to take them away, and likewise the person in the field must not turn back. 17:32 Remember Lot’s wife! ¹⁰ 

Hebrews 10:38

10:38 But my righteous one will live by faith, and if he shrinks back, I ¹¹  take no pleasure in him. ¹² 

[19:17]  ¹ tn Or “one of them”; Heb “he.” Several ancient versions (LXX, Vulgate, Syriac) read the plural “they.” See also the note on “your” in v. 19.

[19:17]  ² tn Heb “escape.”

[19:17]  ³ tn The Hebrew verb translated “look” signifies an intense gaze, not a passing glance. This same verb is used later in v. 26 to describe Lot’s wife’s self-destructive look back at the city.

[19:17]  ⁴ tn Or “in the plain”; Heb “in the circle,” referring to the “circle” or oval area of the Jordan Valley.

[14:14]  ⁵ tn Heb “a turning away of heart.” The genitive לֵב (lev, “heart”) functions as an attributive adjective: “a backslidden heart.” The term סוּג (sug) means “to move away; to move backwards; to depart; to backslide” (BDB 690 s.v. I סוּג). This individual is the one who backslides, that is, who departs from the path of righteousness.

[14:14]  ⁶ tn Heb “will be filled”; cf. KJV, ASV. The verb (“to be filled, to be satisfied”) here means “to be repaid,” that is, to partake in his own evil ways. His faithlessness will come back to haunt him.

[14:14]  ⁷ tn The phrase “will be rewarded” does not appear in the Hebrew but is supplied in the translation for the sake of clarity and smoothness.

[17:31]  ⁸ sn Most of the roofs in the NT were flat roofs made of pounded dirt, sometimes mixed with lime or stones, supported by heavy wooden beams. They generally had an easy means of access, either a sturdy wooden ladder or stone stairway, sometimes on the outside of the house.

[17:31]  ⁹ sn The swiftness and devastation of the judgment will require a swift escape. There is no time to come down from one’s roof and pick up anything from inside one’s home.

[17:32]  ¹⁰ sn An allusion to Gen 19:26. The warning about Lot’s wife is not to look back and long to be where one used to be. The world is being judged, and the person who delays or turns back will be destroyed.

[10:38]  ¹¹ tn Grk “my soul.”

[10:38]  ¹² sn A quotation from Hab 2:4.