Hebrews 12:29

12:29 For our God is indeed a devouring fire. ¹ 

Psalms 50:22

50:22 Carefully consider this, you who reject God! ² 

Otherwise I will rip you to shreds ³ 

and no one will be able to rescue you.

Psalms 76:7

76:7 You are awesome! Yes, you!

Who can withstand your intense anger? ⁴ 

Psalms 90:11

90:11 Who can really fathom the intensity of your anger? ⁵ 

Your raging fury causes people to fear you. ⁶ 

Matthew 10:28

10:28 Do ⁷  not be afraid of those who kill the body ⁸  but cannot kill the soul. Instead, fear the one who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. ⁹ 

Luke 12:5

12:5 But I will warn ¹⁰  you whom you should fear: Fear the one who, after the killing, ¹¹  has authority to throw you ¹²  into hell. ¹³  Yes, I tell you, fear him!

[12:29]  ¹ sn A quotation from Deut 4:24; 9:3.

[50:22]  ² tn Heb “[you who] forget God.” “Forgetting God” here means forgetting about his commandments and not respecting his moral authority.

[50:22]  ³ sn Elsewhere in the psalms this verb is used (within a metaphorical framework) of a lion tearing its prey (see Pss 7:2; 17:12; 22:13).

[76:7]  ⁴ tc Heb “and who can stand before you from the time of your anger?” The Hebrew expression מֵאָז (me’az, “from the time of”) is better emended to מֵאֹז (me’oz, “from [i.e., “because of”] the strength of your anger”; see Ps 90:11).

[90:11]  ⁵ tn Heb “Who knows the strength of your anger?”

[90:11]  ⁶ tn Heb “and like your fear [is] your raging fury.” Perhaps one should emend וּכְיִרְאָתְךְ (ukhyir’otekh, “and like your fear”) to יִרְאָתְךְ (yir’otkh, “your fear”), understanding a virtual dittography (אַפֶּךָ וּכְיִרְאָתְךְ, ’apekha ukhyir’otekh) to have occurred. In this case the psalmist asserts “your fear [is] your raging fury,” that is, your raging fury is what causes others to fear you. The suffix on “fear” is understood as objective.

[10:28]  ⁷ tn Here καί (kai) has not been translated.

[10:28]  ⁸ sn Judaism had a similar exhortation in 4 Macc 13:14-15.

[10:28]  ⁹ sn See the note on the word hell in 5:22.

[12:5]  ¹⁰ tn Grk “will show,” but in this reflective context such a demonstration is a warning or exhortation.

[12:5]  ¹¹ sn The actual performer of the killing is not here specified. It could be understood to be God (so NASB, NRSV) but it could simply emphasize that, after a killing has taken place, it is God who casts the person into hell.

[12:5]  ¹² tn The direct object (“you”) is understood.

[12:5]  ¹³ sn The word translated hell is “Gehenna” (γέεννα, geenna), a Greek transliteration of the Hebrew words ge hinnom (“Valley of Hinnom”). This was the valley along the south side of Jerusalem. In OT times it was used for human sacrifices to the pagan god Molech (cf. Jer 7:31; 19:5-6; 32:35), and it came to be used as a place where human excrement and rubbish were disposed of and burned. In the intertestamental period, it came to be used symbolically as the place of divine punishment (cf. 1 En. 27:2, 90:26; 4 Ezra 7:36).