Isaiah 10:6

10:6 I sent him ¹  against a godless ²  nation,

I ordered him to attack the people with whom I was angry, ³ 

to take plunder and to carry away loot,

to trample them down ⁴  like dirt in the streets.

Isaiah 48:1-2

The Lord Appeals to the Exiles

48:1 Listen to this, O family of Jacob, ⁵ 

you who are called by the name ‘Israel,’

and are descended from Judah, ⁶ 

who take oaths in the name of the Lord,

and invoke ⁷  the God of Israel –

but not in an honest and just manner. ⁸ 

48:2 Indeed, they live in the holy city; ⁹ 

they trust in ¹⁰  the God of Israel,

whose name is the Lord who commands armies.

Isaiah 58:2-3

58:2 They seek me day after day;

they want to know my requirements, ¹¹ 

like a nation that does what is right

and does not reject the law of their God.

They ask me for just decrees;

they want to be near God.

58:3 They lament, ¹²  ‘Why don’t you notice when we fast?

Why don’t you pay attention when we humble ourselves?’

Look, at the same time you fast, you satisfy your selfish desires, ¹³ 

you oppress your workers. ¹⁴ 

Psalms 17:1

Psalm 17 ¹⁵ 

A prayer of David.

17:1 Lord, consider my just cause! ¹⁶ 

Pay attention to my cry for help!

Listen to the prayer

I sincerely offer! ¹⁷ 

Jeremiah 3:10

3:10 In spite of all this, ¹⁸  Israel’s sister, unfaithful Judah, has not turned back to me with any sincerity; she has only pretended to do so,” ¹⁹  says the Lord.

Jeremiah 5:2

5:2 These people make promises in the name of the Lord. ²⁰ 

But the fact is, ²¹  what they swear to is really a lie.” ²² 

Jeremiah 12:2

12:2 You plant them like trees and they put down their roots. ²³ 

They grow prosperous and are very fruitful. ²⁴ 

They always talk about you,

but they really care nothing about you. ²⁵ 

Jeremiah 42:2-4

42:2 They said to him, “Please grant our request ²⁶  and pray to the Lord your God for all those of us who are still left alive here. ²⁷  For, as you yourself can see, there are only a few of us left out of the many there were before. ²⁸  42:3 Pray that the Lord your God will tell us where we should go and what we should do.” 42:4 The prophet Jeremiah answered them, “Agreed! ²⁹  I will indeed pray to the Lord your God as you have asked. I will tell you everything the Lord replies in response to you. ³⁰  I will not keep anything back from you.”

Jeremiah 42:20

42:20 You are making a fatal mistake. ³¹  For you sent me to the Lord your God and asked me, ‘Pray to the Lord our God for us. Tell us what the Lord our God says and we will do it.’ ³² 

Ezekiel 33:31-33

33:31 They come to you in crowds, ³³  and they sit in front of you as ³⁴  my people. They hear your words, but do not obey ³⁵  them. For they talk lustfully, ³⁶  and their heart is set on ³⁷  their own advantage. ³⁸  33:32 Realize ³⁹  that to them you are like a sensual song, a beautiful voice and skilled musician. ⁴⁰  They hear your words, but they do not obey them. ⁴¹  33:33 When all this comes true – and it certainly will ⁴²  – then they will know that a prophet was among them.”

Matthew 15:7-9

15:7 Hypocrites! Isaiah prophesied correctly about you when he said,

15:8 ‘This people honors me with their lips,

but their heart ⁴³  is far from me,

15:9 and they worship me in vain,

teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’” ⁴⁴ 

[10:6]  ¹ sn Throughout this section singular forms are used to refer to Assyria; perhaps the king of Assyria is in view (see v. 12).

[10:6]  ² tn Or “defiled”; cf. ASV “profane”; NAB “impious”; NCV “separated from God.”

[10:6]  ³ tn Heb “and against the people of my anger I ordered him.”

[10:6]  ⁴ tn Heb “to make it [i.e., the people] a trampled place.”

[48:1]  ⁵ tn Heb “house of Jacob”; TEV, CEV “people of Israel.”

[48:1]  ⁶ tc The Hebrew text reads literally “and from the waters of Judah came out.” מִמֵּי (mimme) could be a corruption of מִמְּעֵי (mimmÿ’e, “from the inner parts of”; cf. NASB, NIV, NLT, NRSV) as suggested in the above translation. Some translations (ESV, NKJV) retain the MT reading because the Qumran scroll 1QIsa^a, which corrects a similar form to “from inner parts of” in 39:7, does not do it here.

[48:1]  ⁷ tn Heb “cause to remember”; KJV, ASV “make mention of.”

[48:1]  ⁸ tn Heb “not in truth and not in righteousness.”

[48:2]  ⁹ tn Heb “they call themselves [or “are called”] from the holy city.” The precise meaning of the statement is uncertain. The Niphal of קָרָא (qara’) is combined with the preposition מִן (min) only here. When the Qal of קָרָא is used with מִן, the preposition often indicates the place from which one is summoned (see 46:11). So one could translate, “from the holy city they are summoned,” meaning that they reside there.

[48:2]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “lean on” (so NASB, NRSV); NAB, NIV “rely on.”

[58:2]  ¹³ tn Heb “ways” (so KJV, NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV, TEV); NLT “my laws.”

[58:3]  ¹⁷ tn The words “they lament” are supplied in the translation for clarification.

[58:3]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “you find pleasure”; NASB “you find your desire.”

[58:3]  ¹⁹ tn Or perhaps, “debtors.” See HALOT 865 s.v. * עָצֵב.

[17:1]  ²¹ sn Psalm 17. The psalmist asks God to intervene on his behalf because his life is threatened by dangerous enemies. He appeals to divine justice, for he is certain of his own innocence. Because he is innocent, he expects to encounter God and receive an assuring word.

[17:1]  ²² tn Heb “hear, Lord, what is just.”

[17:1]  ²³ tn Heb “Listen to my prayer, [made] without lips of deceit.”

[3:10]  ²⁵ tn Heb “And even in all this.”

[3:10]  ²⁶ tn Heb “ has not turned back to me with all her heart but only in falsehood.”

[5:2]  ²⁹ tn Heb “Though they say, ‘As surely as the Lord lives.” The idea of “swear on oath” comes from the second line.

[5:2]  ³⁰ tc The translation follows many Hebrew mss and the Syriac version in reading “surely” (אָכֵן, ’akhen) instead of “therefore” (לָכֵן, lakhen) in the MT.

[5:2]  ³¹ tn Heb “they swear falsely.”

[12:2]  ³³ tn Heb “You planted them and they took root.”

[12:2]  ³⁴ tn Heb “they grow and produce fruit.” For the nuance “grow” for the verb which normally means “go, walk,” see BDB 232 s.v. חָלַךְ Qal.I.3 and compare Hos 14:7.

[12:2]  ³⁵ tn Heb “You are near in their mouths, but far from their kidneys.” The figure of substitution is being used here, “mouth” for “words” and “kidneys” for passions and affections. A contemporary equivalent might be, “your name is always on their lips, but their hearts are far from you.”

[42:2]  ³⁷ tn Heb “please let our petition fall before you.” For the idiom here see 37:20 and the translator’s note there.

[42:2]  ³⁸ tn Heb “on behalf of us, [that is] on behalf of all this remnant.”

[42:2]  ³⁹ tn Heb “For we are left a few from the many as your eyes are seeing us.” The words “used to be” are not in the text but are implicit. These words are supplied in the translation for clarity and smoothness of English style.

[42:4]  ⁴¹ tn Heb “I have heard” = “I agree.” For this nuance of the verb see BDB 1034 s.v. שָׁמַע Qal.1.j and compare the usage in Gen 37:27 and Judg 11:17 listed there.

[42:4]  ⁴² tn Heb “all the word which the Lord will answer you.

[42:20]  ⁴⁵ tn Heb “you are erring at the cost of your own lives” (BDB 1073 s.v. תָּעָה Hiph.3 and HALOT 1626 s.v. תָּעָה Hif 4, and cf. BDB 90 s.v. בְּ 3 and see parallels in 1 Kgs 2:23; 2 Sam 23:17 for the nuance of “at the cost of your lives”). This fits the context better than “you are deceiving yourselves” (KBL 1035 s.v. תָּעָה Hif 4). The reading here follows the Qere הִתְעֵיתֶם (hit’etem) rather than the Kethib which has a metathesis of י (yod) and ת (tav), i.e., הִתְעֵתֶים. The Greek text presupposes הֲרֵעֹתֶם (hare’otem, “you have done evil”), but that reading is generally rejected as secondary.

[42:20]  ⁴⁶ tn Heb “According to all which the Lord our God says so tell us and we will do.” The restructuring of the sentence is intended to better reflect contemporary English style.

[33:31]  ⁴⁹ tn Heb “as people come.” Apparently this is an idiom indicating that they come in crowds. See D. I. Block, Ezekiel (NICOT), 2:264.

[33:31]  ⁵⁰ tn The word “as” is supplied in the translation.

[33:31]  ⁵¹ tn Heb “do.”

[33:31]  ⁵² tn Heb “They do lust with their mouths.”

[33:31]  ⁵³ tn Heb “goes after.”

[33:31]  ⁵⁴ tn The present translation understands the term often used for “unjust gain” in a wider sense, following M. Greenberg, who also notes that the LXX uses a term which can describe either sexual or ritual pollution. See M. Greenberg, Ezekiel (AB), 2:687.

[33:32]  ⁵³ tn The word הִנֵּה (hinneh, traditionally “behold”) indicates becoming aware of something and has been translated here as a verb.

[33:32]  ⁵⁴ tn Heb “one who makes playing music well.”

[33:32]  ⁵⁵ sn Similar responses are found in Isa 29:13; Matt 21:28-32; James 1:22-25.

[33:33]  ⁵⁷ tn Heb “behold it is coming.”

[15:8]  ⁶¹ tn The term “heart” is a collective singular in the Greek text.

[15:9]  ⁶⁵ sn A quotation from Isa 29:13.