Isaiah 63:6

63:6 I trampled nations in my anger,

I made them drunk ¹  in my rage,

I splashed their blood on the ground.” ² 

Job 34:11

34:11 For he repays a person for his work, ³ 

and according to the conduct of a person,

he causes the consequences to find him. ⁴ 

Psalms 18:24-26

18:24 The Lord rewarded me for my godly deeds; ⁵ 

he took notice of my blameless behavior. ⁶ 

18:25 You prove to be loyal ⁷  to one who is faithful; ⁸ 

you prove to be trustworthy ⁹  to one who is innocent. ¹⁰ 

18:26 You prove to be reliable ¹¹  to one who is blameless,

but you prove to be deceptive ¹²  to one who is perverse. ¹³ 

Psalms 62:12

62:12 and you, O Lord, demonstrate loyal love. ¹⁴ 

For you repay men for what they do. ¹⁵ 

Jeremiah 17:10

17:10 I, the Lord, probe into people’s minds.

I examine people’s hearts. ¹⁶ 

I deal with each person according to how he has behaved.

I give them what they deserve based on what they have done.

Jeremiah 50:29

50:29 “Call for archers ¹⁷  to come against Babylon!

Summon against her all who draw the bow!

Set up camp all around the city!

Do not allow anyone to escape!

Pay her back for what she has done.

Do to her what she has done to others.

For she has proudly defied me, ¹⁸ 

the Holy One of Israel. ¹⁹ 

Matthew 16:27

16:27 For the Son of Man will come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will reward each person according to what he has done. ²⁰ 

Romans 2:6

2:6 He ²¹  will reward ²²  each one according to his works: ²³ 

Revelation 20:12-13

20:12 And I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne. Then ²⁴  books were opened, and another book was opened – the book of life. ²⁵  So ²⁶  the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to their deeds. ²⁷  20:13 The ²⁸  sea gave up the dead that were in it, and Death ²⁹  and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each one was judged according to his deeds.

[63:6]  ¹ sn See Isa 49:26 and 51:23 for similar imagery.

[63:6]  ² tn Heb “and I brought down to the ground their juice.” “Juice” refers to their blood (see v. 3).

[34:11]  ³ tn Heb “for the work of man, he [= God] repays him.”

[34:11]  ⁴ tn Heb “he causes it to find him.” The text means that God will cause a man to find (or receive) the consequences of his actions.

[18:24]  ⁵ tn Heb “according to my righteousness.”

[18:24]  ⁶ tn Heb “according to the purity of my hands before his eyes.” 2 Sam 22:25 reads “according to my purity before his eyes.” The verbal repetition (compare vv. 20 and 24) sets off vv. 20-24 as a distinct sub-unit within the psalm.

[18:25]  ⁷ tn The imperfect verbal forms in vv. 25-29 draw attention to God’s characteristic actions. Based on his experience, the psalmist generalizes about God’s just dealings with people (vv. 25-27) and about the way in which God typically empowers him on the battlefield (vv. 28-29). The Hitpael stem is used in vv. 26-27 in a reflexive resultative (or causative) sense. God makes himself loyal, etc. in the sense that he conducts or reveals himself as such. On this use of the Hitpael stem, see GKC 149-50 §54.e.

[18:25]  ⁸ tn Or “to a faithful follower.” A “faithful follower” (חָסִיד, khasid) is one who does what is right in God’s eyes and remains faithful to God (see Pss 4:3; 12:1; 16:10; 31:23; 37:28; 86:2; 97:10).

[18:25]  ⁹ tn Or “innocent.”

[18:25]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “a man of innocence.”

[18:26]  ¹¹ tn Or “blameless.”

[18:26]  ¹² tn The Hebrew verb פָתַל (patal) is used in only three other texts. In Gen 30:8 it means literally “to wrestle,” or “to twist.” In Job 5:13 it refers to devious individuals, and in Prov 8:8 to deceptive words.

[18:26]  ¹³ tn The adjective עִקֵּשׁ (’iqqesh) has the basic nuance “twisted, crooked,” and by extension refers to someone or something that is morally perverse. It appears frequently in Proverbs, where it is used of evil people (22:5), speech (8:8; 19:1), thoughts (11:20; 17:20), and life styles (2:15; 28:6). A righteous king opposes such people (Ps 101:4).

[62:12]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “and to you, O Master, [is] loyal love.”

[62:12]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “for you pay back to a man according to his deed.” Another option is to understand vv. 11b and 12a as the first principle and v. 12b as the second. In this case one might translate, “God has declared one principle, two principles I have heard, namely, that God is strong, and you, O Lord, demonstrate loyal love, and that you repay men for what they do.”

[17:10]  ¹⁶ tn The term rendered “mind” here and in the previous verse is actually the Hebrew word for “heart.” However, in combination with the word rendered “heart” in the next line, which is the Hebrew for “kidneys,” it is best rendered “mind” because the “heart” was considered the center of intellect, conscience, and will and the “kidneys” the center of emotions.

[50:29]  ¹⁷ tn For this word see BDB 914 s.v. III רַב and compare usage in Prov 26:10 and Job 16:12 and compare the usage of the verb in Gen 49:23. Based on this evidence, it is not necessary to emend the form to רֹבִים (rovim) as many commentators contend.

[50:29]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “for she has acted insolently against the Lord.” Once again there is the problem of the Lord speaking about himself in the third person (or the prophet dropping his identification with the Lord). As in several other places the present translation, along with several other modern English versions (TEV, CEV, NIrV), has substituted the first person to maintain consistency with the context.

[50:29]  ¹⁹ sn The Holy One of Israel is a common title for the Lord in the book of Isaiah. It is applied to the Lord only here and in 51:5 in the book of Jeremiah. It is a figure where an attribute of a person is put as a title of a person (compare “your majesty” for a king). It pictures the Lord as the sovereign king who rules over his covenant people and exercises moral authority over them.

[16:27]  ²⁰ sn An allusion to Pss 28:4; 62:12; cf. Prov 24:12.

[2:6]  ²¹ tn Grk “who.” The relative pronoun was converted to a personal pronoun and, because of the length and complexity of the Greek sentence, a new sentence was started here in the translation.

[2:6]  ²² tn Or “will render,” “will recompense.” In this context Paul is setting up a hypothetical situation, not stating that salvation is by works.

[2:6]  ²³ sn A quotation from Ps 62:12; Prov 24:12; a close approximation to Matt 16:27.

[20:12]  ²⁴ tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “then” to indicate the implied sequence of events within the vision.

[20:12]  ²⁵ tn Grk “another book was opened, which is of life.”

[20:12]  ²⁶ tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “so” to indicate the implied result of the books being opened.

[20:12]  ²⁷ tn Grk “from the things written in the books according to their works.”

[20:13]  ²⁸ tn Here καί (kai) has not been translated because of differences between Greek and English style.

[20:13]  ²⁹ sn Here Death is personified (cf. 1 Cor 15:55).