Isaiah 1:15

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

I look the other way; ¹ 

when you offer your many prayers,

I do not listen,

because your hands are covered with blood. ² 

Isaiah 1:21

Purifying Judgment

1:21 How tragic that the once-faithful city

has become a prostitute! ³ 

She was once a center of ⁴  justice,

fairness resided in her,

but now only murderers. ⁵ 

Jeremiah 2:30

2:30 “It did no good for me to punish your people.

They did not respond to such correction.

You slaughtered your prophets

like a voracious lion.” ⁶ 

Jeremiah 2:34

2:34 Even your clothes are stained with

the lifeblood of the poor who had not done anything wrong;

you did not catch them breaking into your homes. ⁷ 

Yet, in spite of all these things you have done, ⁸ 

Jeremiah 22:17

22:17 But you are always thinking and looking

for ways to increase your wealth by dishonest means.

Your eyes and your heart are set

on killing some innocent person

and committing fraud and oppression. ⁹ 

Ezekiel 7:23

7:23 (Make the chain, ¹⁰  because the land is full of murder ¹¹  and the city is full of violence.)

Ezekiel 9:9

9:9 He said to me, “The sin of the house of Israel and Judah is extremely great; the land is full of murder, and the city is full of corruption, ¹²  for they say, ‘The Lord has abandoned the land, and the Lord does not see!’ ¹³ 

Ezekiel 22:2

22:2 “As for you, son of man, are you willing to pronounce judgment, ¹⁴  are you willing to pronounce judgment on the bloody city? ¹⁵  Then confront her with all her abominable deeds!

Ezekiel 35:6

35:6 Therefore, as surely as I live, declares the sovereign Lord, I will subject you to bloodshed, and bloodshed will pursue you. Since you did not hate bloodshed, bloodshed will pursue you.

Hosea 4:2

4:2 There is only cursing, lying, murder, stealing, and adultery.

They resort to violence and bloodshed. ¹⁶ 

Micah 3:10-12

3:10 You ¹⁷  build Zion through bloody crimes, ¹⁸ 

Jerusalem ¹⁹  through unjust violence.

3:11 Her ²⁰  leaders take bribes when they decide legal cases, ²¹ 

her priests proclaim rulings for profit,

and her prophets read omens for pay.

Yet they claim to trust ²²  the Lord and say,

“The Lord is among us. ²³ 

Disaster will not overtake ²⁴  us!”

3:12 Therefore, because of you, ²⁵  Zion will be plowed up like ²⁶  a field,

Jerusalem will become a heap of ruins,

and the Temple Mount ²⁷  will become a hill overgrown with brush! ²⁸ 

Micah 7:2

7:2 Faithful men have disappeared ²⁹  from the land;

there are no godly men left. ³⁰ 

They all wait in ambush so they can shed blood; ³¹ 

they hunt their own brother with a net. ³² 

Matthew 27:4

27:4 saying, “I have sinned by betraying innocent blood!” But they said, “What is that to us? You take care of it yourself!”

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

[1:15]  ² 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.

[1:21]  ³ tn Heb “How she has become a prostitute, the faithful city!” The exclamatory אֵיכָה (’ekhah, “how!”) is used several times as the beginning of a lament (see Lam 1:1; 2;1; 4:1-2). Unlike a number of other OT passages that link references to Israel’s harlotry to idolatry, Isaiah here makes the connection with social and moral violations.

[1:21]  ⁴ tn Heb “filled with.”

[1:21]  ⁵ tn Or “assassins.” This refers to the oppressive rich and/or their henchmen. R. Ortlund (Whoredom, 78) posits that it serves as a synecdoche for all varieties of criminals, the worst being mentioned to imply all lesser ones. Since Isaiah often addressed his strongest rebuke to the rulers and leaders of Israel, he may have in mind the officials who bore the responsibility to uphold justice and righteousness.

[2:30]  ⁶ tn Heb “Your sword devoured your prophets like a destroying lion.” However, the reference to the sword in this and many similar idioms is merely idiomatic for death by violent means.

[2:34]  ⁷ tn The words “for example” are implicit and are supplied in the translation for clarification. This is only one example of why their death was not legitimate.

[2:34]  ⁸ tn KJV and ASV read this line with 2:34. The ASV makes little sense and the KJV again erroneously reads the archaic second person feminine singular perfect as first person common singular. All the modern English versions and commentaries take this line with 2:35.

[22:17]  ⁹ tn Heb “Your eyes and your heart do not exist except for dishonest gain and for innocent blood to shed [it] and for fraud and for oppression to do [them].” The sentence has been broken up to conform more to English style and the significance of “eyes” and “heart” explained before they are introduced into the translation.

[7:23]  ¹⁰ tc The Hebrew word “the chain” occurs only here in the OT. The reading of the LXX (“and they will make carnage”) seems to imply a Hebrew text of ַהבַּתּוֹק (habbattoq, “disorder, slaughter”) instead of הָרַתּוֹק (haratoq, “the chain”). The LXX is also translating the verb as a third person plural future and taking this as the end of the preceding verse. As M. Greenberg (Ezekiel [AB], 1:154) notes, this may refer to a chain for a train of exiles but “the context does not speak of exile but of the city’s fall. The versions guess desperately and we can do little better.”

[7:23]  ¹¹ tn Heb “judgment for blood,” i.e., indictment or accountability for bloodshed. The word for “judgment” does not appear in the similar phrase in 9:9.

[9:9]  ¹² tn Or “lawlessness” (NAB); “perversity” (NRSV). The Hebrew word occurs only here in the OT, and its meaning is uncertain. The similar phrase in 7:23 has a common word for “violence.”

[9:9]  ¹³ sn The saying is virtually identical to that of the elders in Ezek 8:12.

[22:2]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “will you judge.” Here the imperfect form of the verb is probably used with a desiderative nuance. Addressed to the prophet, “judge” means to warn of or pronounce God’s impending judgment upon the city. See 20:4.

[22:2]  ¹⁵ tn The phrase “bloody city” is used of Nineveh in Nah 3:1.

[4:2]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “they break out and bloodshed touches bloodshed.” The Hebrew term פָּרַץ (parats, “to break out”) refers to violent and wicked actions (BDB 829 s.v. פָּרַץ 7; HALOT 972 s.v. פרץ 6.c). It is used elsewhere in a concrete sense to describe breaking through physical barriers. Here it is used figuratively to describe breaking moral barriers and restraints (cf. TEV “Crimes increase, and there is one murder after another”).

[3:10]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “who.”

[3:10]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “bloodshed” (so NAB, NASB, NIV); NLT “murder.”

[3:10]  ¹⁹ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[3:11]  ²⁰ sn The pronoun Her refers to Jerusalem (note the previous line).

[3:11]  ²¹ tn Heb “judge for a bribe.”

[3:11]  ²² tn Heb “they lean upon” (so KJV, NIV, NRSV); NAB “rely on.”

[3:11]  ²³ tn Heb “Is not the Lord in our midst?” The rhetorical question expects the answer, “Of course he is!”

[3:11]  ²⁴ tn Or “come upon” (so many English versions); NCV “happen to us”; CEV “come to us.”

[3:12]  ²⁵ tn The plural pronoun refers to the leaders, priests, and prophets mentioned in the preceding verse.

[3:12]  ²⁶ tn Or “into” (an adverbial accusative of result).

[3:12]  ²⁷ tn Heb “the mountain of the house” (so KJV, ASV, NRSV).

[3:12]  ²⁸ tn Heb “a high place of overgrowth.”

[7:2]  ²⁹ tn Or “have perished”; “have been destroyed.”

[7:2]  ³⁰ tn Heb “and an upright one among men there is not.”

[7:2]  ³¹ tn Heb “for bloodshed” (so NASB); TEV “for a chance to commit murder.”

[7:2]  ³² sn Micah compares these ungodly people to hunters trying to capture their prey with a net.