Isaiah 65:21-23

65:21 They will build houses and live in them;

they will plant vineyards and eat their fruit.

65:22 No longer will they build a house only to have another live in it, ¹ 

or plant a vineyard only to have another eat its fruit, ² 

for my people will live as long as trees, ³ 

and my chosen ones will enjoy to the fullest what they have produced. ⁴ 

65:23 They will not work in vain,

or give birth to children that will experience disaster. ⁵ 

For the Lord will bless their children

and their descendants. ⁶ 

Leviticus 26:16

26:16 I for my part ⁷  will do this to you: I will inflict horror on you, consumption and fever, which diminish eyesight and drain away the vitality of life. ⁸  You will sow your seed in vain because ⁹  your enemies will eat it. ¹⁰ 

Deuteronomy 28:31

28:31 Your ox will be slaughtered before your very eyes but you will not eat of it. Your donkey will be stolen from you as you watch and will not be returned to you. Your flock of sheep will be given to your enemies and there will be no one to save you.

Deuteronomy 28:33

28:33 As for the produce of your land and all your labor, a people you do not know will consume it, and you will be nothing but oppressed and crushed for the rest of your lives.

Jude 1:3-6

Condemnation of the False Teachers

1:3 Dear friends, although I have been eager to write to you ¹¹  about our common salvation, I now feel compelled ¹²  instead to write to encourage ¹³  you to contend earnestly ¹⁴  for the faith ¹⁵  that was once for all ¹⁶  entrusted to the saints. ¹⁷  1:4 For certain men ¹⁸  have secretly slipped in among you ¹⁹  – men who long ago ²⁰  were marked out ²¹  for the condemnation I am about to describe ²²  – ungodly men who have turned the grace of our God into a license for evil ²³  and who deny our only Master ²⁴  and Lord, ²⁵  Jesus Christ.

1:5 Now I desire to remind you (even though you have been fully informed of these facts ²⁶  once for all ²⁷ ) that Jesus, ²⁸  having saved the ²⁹  people out of the land of Egypt, later ³⁰  destroyed those who did not believe. 1:6 You also know that ³¹  the angels who did not keep within their proper domain ³²  but abandoned their own place of residence, he has kept ³³  in eternal chains ³⁴  in utter ³⁵  darkness, locked up ³⁶  for the judgment of the great Day.

Jeremiah 5:17

5:17 They will eat up your crops and your food.

They will kill off ³⁷  your sons and your daughters.

They will eat up your sheep and your cattle.

They will destroy your vines and your fig trees. ³⁸ 

Their weapons will batter down ³⁹ 

the fortified cities you trust in.

[65:22]  ¹ tn Heb “they will not build, and another live [in it].”

[65:22]  ² tn Heb “they will not plant, and another eat.”

[65:22]  ³ tn Heb “for like the days of the tree [will be] the days of my people.”

[65:22]  ⁴ tn Heb “the work of their hands” (so KJV, NASB, NIV, NRSV); NLT “their hard-won gains.”

[65:23]  ⁵ tn Heb “and they will not give birth to horror.”

[65:23]  ⁶ tn Heb “for offspring blessed by the Lord they [will be], and their descendants along with them.”

[26:16]  ⁷ tn Or “I also” (see HALOT 76 s.v. אַף 6.b).

[26:16]  ⁸ tn Heb “soul.” These expressions may refer either to the physical effects of consumption and fever as the rendering in the text suggests (e.g., J. E. Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 452, 454, “diminishing eyesight and loss of appetite”), or perhaps the more psychological effects, “which exhausts the eyes” because of anxious hope “and causes depression” (Heb “causes soul [נֶפֶשׁ, nefesh] to pine away”), e.g., B. A. Levine, Leviticus (JPSTC), 185.

[26:16]  ⁹ tn Heb “and.” The Hebrew conjunction ו (vav, “and”) can be considered to have causal force here.

[26:16]  ¹⁰ tn That is, “your enemies will eat” the produce that grows from the sown seed.

[1:3]  ¹¹ tn Grk “while being quite diligent to write to you,” or “while making all haste to write to you.” Two issues are at stake: (1) whether σπουδή (spoudh) here means diligence, eagerness, or haste; (2) whether ποιούμενος γράφειν (poioumeno" grafein) is to be taken conatively (“I was about to write”) or progressively (“I was writing”). Without knowing more of the background, it is difficult to tell which option is to be preferred.

[1:3]  ¹² tn Grk “I had the necessity.” The term ἀνάγκη (anankh, “necessity”) often connotes urgency or distress. In this context, Jude is indicating that the more comprehensive treatment about the faith shared between himself and his readers was not nearly as urgent as the letter he found it now necessary to write.

[1:3]  ¹³ tn Grk “encouraging.” Παρακαλῶν (parakalwn) is most likely a telic participle. In keeping with other participles of purpose, it is present tense and occurs after the main verb.

[1:3]  ¹⁴ tn the verb ἐπαγωνίζομαι (epagwnizomai) is an intensive form of ἀγωνίζομαι (agwnizomai). As such, the notion of struggling, fighting, contending, etc. is heightened.

[1:3]  ¹⁵ tn Τῇ πίστει (th pistei) here is taken as a dative of advantage (“on behalf of the faith”). Though rare (see BDAG 820 s.v. 3), it is not unexampled and must have this meaning here.

[1:3]  ¹⁶ sn The adverb once for all (ἅπαξ, Japax) seems to indicate that the doctrinal convictions of the early church had been substantially codified. That is to say, Jude could appeal to written documents of the Christian faith in his arguments with the false teachers. Most likely, these documents were the letters of Paul and perhaps one or more gospels. First and Second Peter may also have been among the documents Jude has in mind (see also the note on the phrase entrusted to the saints in this verse).

[1:3]  ¹⁷ sn I now feel compelled instead…saints. Apparently news of some crisis has reached Jude, prompting him to write a different letter than what he had originally planned. A plausible scenario (assuming authenticity of 2 Peter or at least that there are authentic Petrine snippets in it) is that after Peter’s death, Jude intended to write to the same Gentile readers that Peter had written to (essentially, Paul’s churches). Jude starts by affirming that the gospel the Gentiles had received from Paul was the same as the one the Jewish Christians had received from the other apostles (our common salvation). But in the midst of writing this letter, Jude felt that the present crisis deserved another, shorter piece. The crisis, as the letter reveals, is that the false teachers whom Peter prophesied have now infiltrated the church. The letter of Jude is thus an ad hoc letter, intended to confirm the truth of Peter’s letter and encourage the saints to ground their faith in the written documents of the nascent church, rather than listen to the twisted gospel of the false teachers. In large measure, the letter of Jude illustrates the necessity of clinging to the authority of scripture as opposed to those who claim to be prophets.

[1:4]  ¹⁸ tn Grk “people.” However, if Jude is indeed arguing that Peter’s prophecy about false teachers has come true, these are most likely men in the original historical and cultural setting. See discussion of this point in the note on the phrase “these men” in 2 Pet 2:12.

[1:4]  ¹⁹ tn “Among you” is not in the Greek text, but is obviously implied.

[1:4]  ²⁰ tn Or “in the past.” The adverb πάλαι (palai) can refer to either, though the meaning “long ago” is more common.

[1:4]  ²¹ tn Grk “written about.”

[1:4]  ²² tn Grk “for this condemnation.” τοῦτο (touto) is almost surely a kataphoric demonstrative pronoun, pointing to what follows in vv. 5-18. Otherwise, the condemnation is only implied (in v. 3b) or is merely a statement of their sinfulness (“ungodly” in v. 4b), not a judgment of it.

[1:4]  ²³ tn Grk “debauchery.” This is the same word Peter uses to predict what the false teachers will be like (2 Pet 2:2, 7, 18).

[1:4]  ²⁴ tc Most later witnesses (P Ψ Ï sy) have θεόν (qeon, “God”) after δεσπότην (despothn, “master”), which appears to be a motivated reading in that it explicitly links “Master” to “God” in keeping with the normal NT pattern (see Luke 2:29; Acts 4:24; 2 Tim 2:21; Rev 6:10). In patristic Greek, δεσπότης (despoth") was used especially of God (cf. BDAG 220 s.v. 1.b.). The earlier and better witnesses (Ì^72,78 א A B C 0251 33 81 323 1241 1739 al co) lack θεόν; the shorter reading is thus preferred on both internal and external grounds.

[1:4]  ²⁵ tn The terms “Master and Lord” both refer to the same person. The construction in Greek is known as the Granville Sharp rule, named after the English philanthropist-linguist who first clearly articulated the rule in 1798. Sharp pointed out that in the construction article-noun-καί-noun (where καί [kai] = “and”), when two nouns are singular, personal, and common (i.e., not proper names), they always had the same referent. Illustrations such as “the friend and brother,” “the God and Father,” etc. abound in the NT to prove Sharp’s point. For more discussion see ExSyn 270-78. See also Titus 2:13 and 2 Pet 1:1

[1:5]  ²⁶ tn Grk “knowing all things.” The subject of the participle “knowing” (εἰδότας, eidota") is an implied ὑμᾶς (Jumas), though several ancient witnesses actually add it. The πάντα (panta) takes on an adverbial force in this context (“fully”), intensifying how acquainted the readers are with the following points.

[1:5]  ²⁷ tc ‡ Some translations take ἅπαξ (Japax) with the following clause (thus, “[Jesus,] having saved the people once for all”). Such a translation presupposes that ἅπαξ is a part of the ὅτι (Joti) clause. The reading of NA²⁷, πάντα ὅτι [ὁ] κύριος ἅπαξ (panta {oti [Jo] kurio" {apax), suggests this interpretation (though with “Lord” instead of “Jesus”). This particle is found before λαόν (laon) in the ὅτι clause in א C* Ψ 630 1241 1243 1505 1739 1846 1881 pc co. But ἅπαξ is found before the ὅτι clause in most witnesses, including several important ones (Ì⁷² A B C² 33 81 623 2344 Ï vg). What seems best able to explain the various placements of the adverb is that scribes were uncomfortable with ἅπαξ referring to the readers’ knowledge, feeling it was more appropriate to the theological significance of “saved” (σώσας, swsas).

[1:5]  ²⁸ tc ‡ The reading ᾿Ιησοῦς (Ihsous, “Jesus”) is deemed too hard by several scholars, since it involves the notion of Jesus acting in the early history of the nation Israel. However, not only does this reading enjoy the strongest support from a variety of early witnesses (e.g., A B 33 81 1241 1739 1881 2344 pc vg co Or^1739mg), but the plethora of variants demonstrate that scribes were uncomfortable with it, for they seemed to exchange κύριος (kurios, “Lord”) or θεός (qeos, “God”) for ᾿Ιησοῦς (though Ì⁷² has the intriguing reading θεὸς Χριστός [qeos Cristos, “God Christ”] for ᾿Ιησοῦς). In addition to the evidence supplied in NA²⁷ for this reading, note also {88 322 323 424^c 665 915 2298 eth Cyr Hier Bede}. As difficult as the reading ᾿Ιησοῦς is, in light of v. 4 and in light of the progress of revelation (Jude being one of the last books in the NT to be composed), it is wholly appropriate.

[1:5]  ²⁹ tn Or perhaps “a,” though this is less likely.

[1:5]  ³⁰ tn Grk “the second time.”

[1:6]  ³¹ tn Grk “and.” Verse 6 is a continuation of the same sentence begun in v. 5. Due to the length and complexity of the Greek sentence, a new sentence was started here in the translation.

[1:6]  ³² tn Grk “who did not keep their own domain.”

[1:6]  ³³ sn There is an interesting play on words used in this verse. Because the angels did not keep their proper place, Jesus has kept them chained up in another place. The same verb keep is used in v. 1 to describe believers’ status before God and Christ.

[1:6]  ³⁴ sn In 2 Pet 2:4 a less common word for chains is used.

[1:6]  ³⁵ tn The word ζόφος (zofos, “utter, deepest darkness”) is used only five times in the NT: two in 2 Peter, two in Jude, and one in Hebrews. Jude 6 parallels 2 Pet 2:4; Jude 13 parallels 2 Pet 2:17.

[1:6]  ³⁶ tn The words “locked up” are not in Greek, but is expressed in English as a resumptive point after the double prepositional phrase (“in eternal chains in utter darkness”).

[5:17]  ³⁷ tn Heb “eat up.”

[5:17]  ³⁸ tn Or “eat up your grapes and figs”; Heb “eat up your vines and your fig trees.”

[5:17]  ³⁹ tn Heb “They will beat down with the sword.” The term “sword” is a figure of speech (synecdoche) for military weapons in general. Siege ramps, not swords, beat down city walls; swords kill people, not city walls.