Hebrews 6:6-9

6:6 and then have committed apostasy, ¹  to renew them again to repentance, since ²  they are crucifying the Son of God for themselves all over again ³  and holding him up to contempt. 6:7 For the ground that has soaked up the rain that frequently falls on ⁴  it and yields useful vegetation for those who tend it receives a blessing from God. 6:8 But if it produces thorns and thistles, it is useless and about to be cursed; ⁵  its fate is to be burned. 6:9 But in your case, dear friends, even though we speak like this, we are convinced of better things relating to salvation.

Hebrews 6:1

6:1 Therefore we must progress beyond ⁶  the elementary ⁷  instructions about Christ ⁸  and move on ⁹  to maturity, not laying this foundation again: repentance from dead works and faith in God,

Hebrews 1:11

1:11 They will perish, but you continue.

And they will all grow old like a garment,

Psalms 44:18

44:18 We have not been unfaithful, ¹⁰ 

nor have we disobeyed your commands. ¹¹ 

Proverbs 1:32

1:32 For the waywardness ¹²  of the

simpletons will kill ¹³  them,

and the careless ease ¹⁴  of fools will destroy them.

Proverbs 14:14

14:14 The backslider ¹⁵  will be paid back ¹⁶  from his own ways,

but a good person will be rewarded ¹⁷  for his.

Luke 11:26

11:26 Then it goes and brings seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they go in and live there, so ¹⁸  the last state of that person ¹⁹  is worse than the first.” ²⁰ 

Luke 11:1

Instructions on Prayer

11:1 Now ²¹  Jesus ²²  was praying in a certain place. When ²³  he stopped, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John ²⁴  taught ²⁵  his disciples.”

Luke 5:16

5:16 Yet Jesus himself ²⁶  frequently withdrew ²⁷  to the wilderness ²⁸  and prayed.

Jude 1:12-13

1:12 These men are ²⁹  dangerous reefs ³⁰  at your love feasts, ³¹  feasting without reverence, ³²  feeding only themselves. ³³  They are ³⁴  waterless ³⁵  clouds, carried along by the winds; autumn trees without fruit ³⁶  – twice dead, ³⁷  uprooted; 1:13 wild sea waves, ³⁸  spewing out the foam of ³⁹  their shame; ⁴⁰  wayward stars ⁴¹  for whom the utter depths of eternal darkness ⁴²  have been reserved.

[6:6]  ¹ tn Or “have fallen away.”

[6:6]  ² tn Or “while”; Grk “crucifying…and holding.” The Greek participles here (“crucifying…and holding”) can be understood as either causal (“since”) or temporal (“while”).

[6:6]  ³ tn Grk “recrucifying the son of God for themselves.”

[6:7]  ⁴ tn Grk “comes upon.”

[6:8]  ⁵ tn Grk “near to a curse.”

[6:1]  ⁶ tn Grk “Therefore leaving behind.” The implication is not of abandoning this elementary information, but of building on it.

[6:1]  ⁷ tn Or “basic.”

[6:1]  ⁸ tn Grk “the message of the beginning of Christ.”

[6:1]  ⁹ tn Grk “leaving behind…let us move on.”

[44:18]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “our heart did not turn backward.” Cf. Ps 78:57.

[44:18]  ¹¹ tn Heb “and our steps did [not] turn aside from your path.” The negative particle is understood by ellipsis (see the preceding line). God’s “path” refers to his commands, i.e., the moral pathway he has prescribed for the psalmist. See Pss 17:5; 25:4.

[1:32]  ¹² tn Heb “turning away” (so KJV). The term מְשׁוּבַת (mÿshuvat, “turning away”) refers to moral defection and apostasy (BDB 1000 s.v.; cf. ASV “backsliding”). The noun מְשׁוּבַת (“turning away”) which appears at the end of Wisdom’s speech in 1:32 is from the same root as the verb תָּשׁוּבוּ (tashuvu, “turn!”) which appears at the beginning of this speech in 1:23. This repetition of the root שׁוּב (shuv, “to turn”) creates a wordplay: Because fools refuse to “turn to” wisdom (1:23), they will be destroyed by their “turning away” from wisdom (1:32). The wordplay highlights the poetic justice of their judgment. But here they have never embraced the teaching in the first place; so it means turning from the advice as opposed to turning to it.

[1:32]  ¹³ sn The Hebrew verb “to kill” (הָרַג, harag) is the end of the naive who refuse to change. The word is broad enough to include murder, massacre, killing in battle, and execution. Here it is judicial execution by God, using their own foolish choices as the means to ruin.

[1:32]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “complacency” (so NASB, NIV, NRSV, NLT); NAB “smugness.” The noun שַׁלְוַה (shalvah) means (1) positively: “quietness; peace; ease” and (2) negatively: “self-sufficiency; complacency; careless security” (BDB 1017 s.v.), which is the sense here. It is “repose gained by ignoring or neglecting the serious responsibilities of life” (C. H. Toy, Proverbs [ICC], 29).

[14:14]  ¹⁵ 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]  ¹⁶ 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]  ¹⁷ 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.

[11:26]  ¹⁸ tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “so” to indicate the concluding point of the story.

[11:26]  ¹⁹ tn Grk “man.” This is a generic use of ἄνθρωπος (anqrwpo"), referring to both males and females.

[11:26]  ²⁰ sn The point of the story is that to fail to respond is to risk a worse fate than when one started.

[11:1]  ²¹ tn Grk “And it happened that while.” The introductory phrase ἐγένετο (egeneto, “it happened that”), common in Luke (69 times) and Acts (54 times), is redundant in contemporary English and has not been translated. Here καί (kai) has been translated as “now” to indicate the transition to a new topic.

[11:1]  ²² tn Grk “he”; the referent (Jesus) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[11:1]  ²³ tn Because of the length and complexity of the Greek sentence, a new sentence was started here in the translation.

[11:1]  ²⁴ sn John refers to John the Baptist.

[11:1]  ²⁵ sn It was not unusual for Jewish groups to have their own prayer as a way of expressing corporate identity. Judaism had the Eighteen Benedictions and apparently John the Baptist had a prayer for his disciples as well.

[5:16]  ²⁶ tn Here αὐτός (autos) has been translated reflexively.

[5:16]  ²⁷ tn Grk “was withdrawing” (ἦν ὑποχωρῶν, hn jJupocwrwn). The adverb “frequently” has been added in the translation to bring out what is most likely an iterative force to the imperfect. However, the imperfect might instead portray an ingressive idea: “he began to withdraw.” See ExSyn 542-43.

[5:16]  ²⁸ tn Or “desert.”

[1:12]  ²⁹ tn Grk “these are the men who are.”

[1:12]  ³⁰ tn Though σπιλάδες (spilades) is frequently translated “blemishes” or “stains,” such is actually a translation of the Greek word σπίλοι (spiloi). The two words are quite similar, especially in their root or lexical forms (σπιλάς [spila"] and σπίλος [spilos] respectively). Some scholars have suggested that σπιλάδες in this context means the same thing as σπίλοι. But such could be the case only by a stretch of the imagination (see BDAG 938 s.v. σπιλάς for discussion). Others suggest that Jude’s spelling was in error (which also is doubtful). One reason for the tension is that in the parallel passage, 2 Pet 2:13, the term used is indeed σπίλος. And if either Jude used 2 Peter or 2 Peter used Jude, one would expect to see the same word. Jude, however, may have changed the wording for the sake of a subtle wordplay. The word σπιλάς was often used of a mere rock, though it normally was associated with a rock along the shore or one jutting out in the water. Thus, the false teachers would appear as “rocks” – as pillars in the community (cf. Matt 16:18; Gal 2:9), when in reality if a believer got too close to them his faith would get shipwrecked. Some suggest that σπιλάδες here means “hidden rocks.” Though this meaning is attested for the word, it is inappropriate in this context, since these false teachers are anything but hidden. They are dangerous because undiscerning folks get close to them, thinking they are rocks and pillars, when they are really dangerous reefs.

[1:12]  ³¹ tc Several witnesses (A C^vid 1243 1846 al), influenced by the parallel in 2 Pet 2:13, read ἀπάταις (apatai", “deceptions”) for ἀγάπαις (agapai", “love-feasts”) in v. 12. However, ἀγάπαις has much stronger and earlier support and should therefore be considered original.

[1:12]  ³² tn Or “fearlessly.” The term in this context, however, is decidedly negative. The implication is that these false teachers ate the Lord’s Supper without regarding the sanctity of the meal. Cf. 1 Cor 11:17-22.

[1:12]  ³³ tn Grk “shepherding themselves.” The verb ποιμαίνω (poimainw) means “shepherd, nurture [the flock].” But these men, rather than tending to the flock of God, nurture only themselves. They thus fall under the condemnation Paul uttered when writing to the Corinthians: “For when it comes time to eat [the Lord’s Supper,] each one goes ahead with his own meal” (1 Cor 11:21). Above all, the love-feast was intended to be a shared meal in which all ate and all felt welcome.

[1:12]  ³⁴ tn “They are” is not in Greek, but resumes the thought begun at the front of v. 12. There is no period before “They are.” English usage requires breaking this into more than one sentence.

[1:12]  ³⁵ tn Cf. 2 Pet 2:17. Jude’s emphasis is slightly different (instead of waterless springs, they are waterless clouds).

[1:12]  ³⁶ sn The imagery portraying the false teachers as autumn trees without fruit has to do with their lack of productivity. Recall the statement to the same effect by Jesus in Matt 7:16-20, in which false prophets will be known by their fruits. Like waterless clouds full of false hope, these trees do not yield any harvest even though it is expected.

[1:12]  ³⁷ tn Grk “having died twice.”

[1:13]  ³⁸ tn Grk “wild waves of the sea.”

[1:13]  ³⁹ tn Grk “foaming, causing to foam.” The verb form is intensive and causative. BDAG 360 s.v. ἐπαφρίζω suggests the meaning “to cause to splash up like froth, cause to foam,” or, in this context, “waves casting up their own shameless deeds like (dirty) foam.”

[1:13]  ⁴⁰ tn Grk “shames, shameful things.” It is uncertain whether shameful deeds or shameful words are in view. Either way, the picture has taken a decided turn: Though waterless clouds and fruitless trees may promise good things, but deliver nothing, wild sea-waves are portents of filth spewed forth from the belly of the sea.

[1:13]  ⁴¹ sn The imagery of a star seems to fit the nautical theme that Jude is developing. Stars were of course the guides to sailors at night, just as teachers are responsible to lead the flock through a benighted world. But false teachers, as wayward stars, are not fixed and hence offer unreliable, even disastrous guidance. They are thus both the dangerous reefs on which the ships could be destroyed and the false guides, leading them into these rocks. There is a special irony that these lights will be snuffed out, reserved for the darkest depths of eternal darkness.

[1:13]  ⁴² tn Grk “utter darkness of darkness for eternity.” See note on the word “utter” in v. 6.