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 30:19

30:19 For people will live in Zion;

in Jerusalem ³  you will weep no more. ⁴ 

When he hears your cry of despair, he will indeed show you mercy;

when he hears it, he will respond to you. ⁵ 

Isaiah 65:24

65:24 Before they even call out, ⁶  I will respond;

while they are still speaking, I will hear.

Psalms 34:15-17

34:15 The Lord pays attention to the godly

and hears their cry for help. ⁷ 

34:16 But the Lord opposes evildoers

and wipes out all memory of them from the earth. ⁸ 

34:17 The godly ⁹  cry out and the Lord hears;

he saves them from all their troubles. ¹⁰ 

Psalms 37:4

37:4 Then you will take delight in the Lord, ¹¹ 

and he will answer your prayers. ¹² 

Psalms 50:15

50:15 Pray to me when you are in trouble! ¹³ 

I will deliver you, and you will honor me!” ¹⁴ 

Psalms 66:18-19

66:18 If I had harbored sin in my heart, ¹⁵ 

the Lord would not have listened.

66:19 However, God heard;

he listened to my prayer.

Psalms 91:15

91:15 When he calls out to me, I will answer him.

I will be with him when he is in trouble;

I will rescue him and bring him honor.

Psalms 118:5

118:5 In my distress ¹⁶  I cried out to the Lord.

The Lord answered me and put me in a wide open place. ¹⁷ 

Jeremiah 29:12-13

29:12 When you call out to me and come to me in prayer, ¹⁸  I will hear your prayers. ¹⁹  29:13 When you seek me in prayer and worship, you will find me available to you. If you seek me with all your heart and soul, ²⁰ 

Matthew 7:7-8

Ask, Seek, Knock

7:7 “Ask ²¹  and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door ²²  will be opened for you. 7:8 For everyone who asks ²³  receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.

Matthew 7:1

Do Not Judge

7:1 “Do not judge so that you will not be judged. ²⁴ 

Matthew 3:1

The Ministry of John the Baptist

3:1 In those days John the Baptist came into the wilderness ²⁵  of Judea proclaiming,

Matthew 3:1

The Ministry of John the Baptist

3:1 In those days John the Baptist came into the wilderness ²⁶  of Judea proclaiming,

[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.

[30:19]  ³ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[30:19]  ⁴ tn Heb “For people in Zion will live, in Jerusalem, you will weep no more.” The phrase “in Jerusalem” could be taken with what precedes. Some prefer to emend יֵשֵׁב (yeshev, “will live,” a Qal imperfect) to יֹשֵׁב (yoshev, a Qal active participle) and translate “For [you] people in Zion, who live in Jerusalem, you will weep no more.”

[30:19]  ⁵ tn Heb “he will indeed show you mercy at the sound of your crying out; when he hears, he will answer you.”

[65:24]  ⁶ tn The verb that introduces this verse serves as a discourse particle and is untranslated; see note on “in the future” in 2:2.

[34:15]  ⁷ tn Heb “the eyes of the Lord [are] toward the godly, and his ears [are] toward their cry for help.”

[34:16]  ⁸ tn Heb “the face of the Lord [is] against the doers of evil to cut off from the earth memory of them.”

[34:17]  ⁹ tn Heb “they” (i.e., the godly mentioned in v. 15).

[34:17]  ¹⁰ tn The three perfect verbal forms are taken in a generalizing sense in v. 17 and translated with the present tense (note the generalizing mood of vv. 18-22).

[37:4]  ¹¹ tn Following the imperatives of v. 3 the prefixed verbal forms with vav (ו) in v. 4 indicate result. Faith and obedience (v. 3) will bring divine blessing (v. 4).

[37:4]  ¹² tn Or “and he will give you what you desire most.” Heb “and he will grant to you the requests of your heart.”

[50:15]  ¹³ tn Heb “call [to] me in a day of trouble.”

[50:15]  ¹⁴ sn In vv. 7-15 the Lord makes it clear that he was not rebuking Israel because they had failed to offer sacrifices (v. 8a). On the contrary, they had been faithful in doing so (v. 8b). However, their understanding of the essence of their relationship with God was confused. Apparently they believed that he needed/desired such sacrifices and that offering them would ensure their prosperity. But the Lord owns all the animals of the world and did not need Israel’s meager sacrifices (vv. 9-13). Other aspects of the relationship were more important to the Lord. He desired Israel to be thankful for his blessings (v. 14a), to demonstrate gratitude for his intervention by repaying the vows they made to him (v. 14b), and to acknowledge their absolute dependence on him (v. 15a). Rather than viewing their sacrifices as somehow essential to God’s well-being, they needed to understand their dependence on him.

[66:18]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “sin if I had seen in my heart.”

[118:5]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “from the distress.” The noun מֵצַר (metsar, “straits; distress”) occurs only here and in Lam 1:3. In Ps 116:3 מצר should probably be emended to מְצָדֵי (mÿtsadey, “snares of”).

[118:5]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “the Lord answered me in a wide open place.”

[29:12]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “come and pray to me.” This is an example of verbal hendiadys where two verb formally joined by “and” convey a main concept with the second verb functioning as an adverbial qualifier.

[29:12]  ¹⁹ tn Or “You will call out to me and come to me in prayer and I will hear your prayers.” The verbs are vav consecutive perfects and can be taken either as unconditional futures or as contingent futures. See GKC 337 §112.kk and 494 §159.g and compare the usage in Gen 44:22 for the use of the vav consecutive perfects in contingent futures. The conditional clause in the middle of 29:13 and the deuteronomic theology reflected in both Deut 30:1-5 and 1 Kgs 8:46-48 suggest that the verbs are continent futures here. For the same demand for wholehearted seeking in these contexts which presuppose exile see especially Deut 30:2, 1 Kgs 8:48.

[29:13]  ²⁰ tn Or “If you wholeheartedly seek me”; Heb “You will seek me and find [me] because you will seek me with all your heart.” The translation attempts to reflect the theological nuances of “seeking” and “finding” and the psychological significance of “heart” which refers more to intellectual and volitional concerns in the OT than to emotional ones.

[7:7]  ²¹ sn The three present imperatives in this verse (Ask…seek…knock) are probably intended to call for a repeated or continual approach before God.

[7:7]  ²² tn Grk “it”; the referent (a door) is implied by the context and has been specified in the translation here and in v. 8 for clarity.

[7:8]  ²³ sn The actions of asking, seeking, and knocking are repeated here from v. 7 with the encouragement that God does respond.

[7:1]  ²⁴ sn The point of the statement do not judge so that you will not be judged is that the standards we apply to others God applies to us. The passive verbs in this verse look to God’s action.

[3:1]  ²⁵ tn Or “desert.”

[3:1]  ²⁶ tn Or “desert.”