Hosea 7:13

Israel Has Turned Away from the Lord

7:13 Woe to them! For they have fled from me!

Destruction to them! For they have rebelled against me!

I want to deliver ¹  them,

but they have lied to me.

Psalms 12:4

12:4 They say, ²  “We speak persuasively; ³ 

we know how to flatter and boast. ⁴ 

Who is our master?” ⁵ 

Psalms 52:2

52:2 Your tongue carries out your destructive plans; ⁶ 

it is as effective as a sharp razor, O deceiver. ⁷ 

Psalms 57:4

57:4 I am surrounded by lions;

I lie down ⁸  among those who want to devour me; ⁹ 

men whose teeth are spears and arrows,

whose tongues are a sharp sword. ¹⁰ 

Psalms 73:9

73:9 They speak as if they rule in heaven,

and lay claim to the earth. ¹¹ 

Isaiah 3:8

3:8 Jerusalem certainly stumbles,

Judah falls,

for their words and their actions offend the Lord; ¹² 

they rebel against his royal authority. ¹³ 

Jeremiah 18:18

Jeremiah Petitions the Lord to Punish Those Who Attack Him

18:18 Then some people ¹⁴  said, “Come on! Let us consider how to deal with Jeremiah! ¹⁵  There will still be priests to instruct us, wise men to give us advice, and prophets to declare God’s word. ¹⁶  Come on! Let’s bring charges against him and get rid of him! ¹⁷  Then we will not need to pay attention to anything he says.”

Matthew 12:36

12:36 I ¹⁸  tell you that on the day of judgment, people will give an account for every worthless word they speak.

James 3:5

3:5 So too the tongue is a small part of the body, ¹⁹  yet it has great pretensions. ²⁰  Think ²¹  how small a flame sets a huge forest ablaze.

James 3:2

3:2 For we all stumble ²²  in many ways. If someone does not stumble ²³  in what he says, ²⁴  he is a perfect individual, ²⁵  able to control the entire body as well.

James 2:8

2:8 But if you fulfill the royal law as expressed in this scripture, ²⁶  “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” ²⁷  you are doing well.

Revelation 13:5

13:5 The beast ²⁸  was given a mouth speaking proud words ²⁹  and blasphemies, and he was permitted ³⁰  to exercise ruling authority ³¹  for forty-two months.

[7:13]  ¹ tn Heb “redeem” (so NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV, NLT); NCV, TEV “save”; CEV “I would have rescued them.”

[12:4]  ² tn Heb “which say.” The plural verb after the relative pronoun indicates a plural antecedent for the pronoun, probably “lips” in v. 3.

[12:4]  ³ tn Heb “to our tongue we make strong.” The Hiphil of גָבַר (gavar) occurs only here and in Dan 9:27, where it refers to making strong, or confirming, a covenant. Here in Ps 12 the evildoers “make their tongue strong” in the sense that they use their tongue to produce flattering and arrogant words to accomplish their purposes. The preposition -לְ (l) prefixed to “our tongue” may be dittographic.

[12:4]  ⁴ tn Heb “our lips [are] with us.” This odd expression probably means, “our lips are in our power,” in the sense that they say what they want, whether it be flattery or boasting. For other cases where אֵת (’et, “with”) has the sense “in the power of,” see Ps 38:10 and other texts listed by BDB 86 s.v. 3.a.

[12:4]  ⁵ sn The rhetorical question expresses the arrogant attitude of these people. As far as they are concerned, they are answerable to no one for how they speak.

[52:2]  ⁶ tn Heb “destruction your tongue devises.”

[52:2]  ⁷ tn Heb “like a sharpened razor, doer of deceit.” The masculine participle עָשָׂה (’asah) is understood as a substantival vocative, addressed to the powerful man.

[57:4]  ⁸ tn The cohortative form אֶשְׁכְּבָה (’eshkÿvah, “I lie down”) is problematic, for it does not seem to carry one of the normal functions of the cohortative (resolve or request). One possibility is that the form here is a “pseudo-cohortative” used here in a gnomic sense (IBHS 576-77 §34.5.3b).

[57:4]  ⁹ tn The Hebrew verb לָהַט (lahat) is here understood as a hapax legomenon meaning “devour” (see HALOT 521 s.v. II להט), a homonym of the more common verb meaning “to burn.” A more traditional interpretation takes the verb from this latter root and translates, “those who are aflame” (see BDB 529 s.v.; cf. NASB “those who breathe forth fire”).

[57:4]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “my life, in the midst of lions, I lie down, devouring ones, sons of mankind, their teeth a spear and arrows and their tongue a sharp sword.” The syntax of the verse is difficult. Another option is to take “my life” with the preceding verse. For this to make sense, one must add a verb, perhaps “and may he deliver” (cf. the LXX), before the phrase. One might then translate, “May God send his loyal love and faithfulness and deliver my life.” If one does take “my life” with v. 4, then the parallelism of v. 5 is altered and one might translate: “in the midst of lions I lie down, [among] men who want to devour me, whose teeth….”

[73:9]  ¹¹ tn Heb “they set in heaven their mouth, and their tongue walks through the earth.” The meaning of the text is uncertain. Perhaps the idea is that they lay claim to heaven (i.e., speak as if they were ruling in heaven) and move through the earth declaring their superiority and exerting their influence. Some take the preposition -בְּ (bet) the first line as adversative and translate, “they set their mouth against heaven,” that is, they defy God.

[3:8]  ¹² tn Heb “for their tongue and their deeds [are] to the Lord.”

[3:8]  ¹³ tn Heb “to rebel [against] the eyes of his majesty.” The word כָּבוֹד (kavod) frequently refers to the Lord’s royal splendor that is an outward manifestation of his authority as king.

[18:18]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “They.” The referent is unidentified; “some people” has been used in the translation.

[18:18]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “Let us make plans against Jeremiah.” See 18:18 where this has sinister overtones as it does here.

[18:18]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “Instruction will not perish from priest, counsel from the wise, word from the prophet.”

[18:18]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “Let us smite him with our tongues.” It is clear from the context that this involved plots to kill him.

[12:36]  ¹⁸ tn Here δέ (de) has not been translated.

[3:5]  ¹⁹ tn Grk “a small member.”

[3:5]  ²⁰ tn Grk “boasts of great things.”

[3:5]  ²¹ tn Grk “Behold.”

[3:2]  ²² tn Or “fail.”

[3:2]  ²³ tn Or “fail.”

[3:2]  ²⁴ tn Grk “in speech.”

[3:2]  ²⁵ tn The word for “man” or “individual” is ἀνήρ (anhr), which often means “male” or “man (as opposed to woman).” But it sometimes is used generically to mean “anyone,” “a person,” as here (cf. BDAG 79 s.v. 2).

[2:8]  ²⁶ tn Grk “according to the scripture.”

[2:8]  ²⁷ sn A quotation from Lev 19:18 (also quoted in Matt 19:19; 22:39; Mark 12:31; Luke 10:27; Rom 13:9; Gal 5:14).

[13:5]  ²⁸ tn Grk “and there was given to him.” Here the passive construction has been simplified, the referent (the beast) has been specified for clarity, and καί (kai) has not been translated because of differences between Greek and English style.

[13:5]  ²⁹ tn For the translation “proud words” (Grk “great things” or “important things”) see BDAG 624 s.v. μέγας 4.b.

[13:5]  ³⁰ tn Grk “to it was granted.”

[13:5]  ³¹ tn For the translation “ruling authority” for ἐξουσία (exousia) see L&N 37.35.