Jeremiah 13:27

13:27 People of Jerusalem, ¹  I have seen your adulterous worship,

your shameless prostitution to, and your lustful pursuit of, other gods. ² 

I have seen your disgusting acts of worship ³ 

on the hills throughout the countryside.

You are doomed to destruction! ⁴ 

How long will you continue to be unclean?’”

Genesis 39:9

39:9 There is no one greater in this household than I am. He has withheld nothing from me except you because you are his wife. So how could I do ⁵  such a great evil and sin against God?”

Exodus 20:14

20:14 “You shall not commit adultery. ⁶ 

Exodus 20:17

20:17 “You shall not covet ⁷  your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that belongs to your neighbor.” ⁸ 

Deuteronomy 5:18

5:18 You must not commit adultery.

Deuteronomy 5:21

5:21 You must not desire ⁹  another man’s ¹⁰  wife, nor should you crave his ¹¹  house, his field, his male and female servants, his ox, his donkey, or anything else he owns.” ¹² 

Deuteronomy 5:2

5:2 The Lord our God made a covenant with us at Horeb.

Deuteronomy 11:2-4

11:2 Bear in mind today that I am not speaking ¹³  to your children who have not personally experienced the judgments ¹⁴  of the Lord your God, which revealed ¹⁵  his greatness, strength, and power. ¹⁶  11:3 They did not see ¹⁷  the awesome deeds he performed ¹⁸  in the midst of Egypt against Pharaoh king of Egypt and his whole land, 11:4 or what he did to the army of Egypt, including their horses and chariots, when he made the waters of the Red Sea ¹⁹  overwhelm them while they were pursuing you and he ²⁰  annihilated them. ²¹ 

Job 31:9

31:9 If my heart has been enticed by a woman,

and I have lain in wait at my neighbor’s door, ²² 

Matthew 5:27-28

Adultery

5:27 “You have heard that it was said, ‘Do not commit adultery.’ ²³  5:28 But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to desire her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

[13:27]  ¹ tn Heb “Jerusalem.” This word has been pulled up from the end of the verse to help make the transition. The words “people of” have been supplied in the translation here to ease the difficulty mentioned earlier of sustaining the personification throughout.

[13:27]  ² tn Heb “[I have seen] your adulteries, your neighings, and your shameless prostitution.” The meanings of the metaphorical references have been incorporated in the translation for the sake of clarity for readers of all backgrounds.

[13:27]  ³ tn Heb “your disgusting acts.” This word is almost always used of idolatry or of the idols themselves. See BDB 1055 s.v. שִׁקֻּוּץ and Deut 29:17 and Jer 4:1; 7:30.

[13:27]  ⁴ tn Heb “Woe to you!”

[39:9]  ⁵ tn The nuance of potential imperfect fits this context.

[20:14]  ⁶ sn This is a sin against the marriage of a fellow citizen – it destroys the home. The Law distinguished between adultery (which had a death penalty) and sexual contact with a young woman (which carried a monetary fine and usually marriage if the father was willing). So it distinguished fornication and adultery. Both were sins, but the significance of each was different. In the ancient world this sin is often referred to as “the great sin.”

[20:17]  ⁷ tn The verb חָמַד (khamad) focuses not on an external act but on an internal mental activity behind the act, the motivation for it. The word can be used in a very good sense (Ps 19:10; 68:16), but it has a bad connotation in contexts where the object desired is off limits. This command is aimed at curtailing the greedy desire for something belonging to a neighbor, a desire that leads to the taking of it or the attempt to take it. It was used in the story of the Garden of Eden for the tree that was desired.

[20:17]  ⁸ sn See further G. Wittenburg, “The Tenth Commandment in the Old Testament,” Journal for Theology in South Africa 21 (1978): 3-17: and E. W. Nicholson, “The Decalogue as the Direct Address of God,” VT 27 (1977): 422-33.

[5:21]  ⁹ tn The Hebrew verb used here (חָמַד, khamad) is different from the one translated “crave” (אָוַה, ’avah) in the next line. The former has sexual overtones (“lust” or the like; cf. Song of Sol 2:3) whereas the latter has more the idea of a desire or craving for material things.

[5:21]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “your neighbor’s.” See note on the term “fellow man” in v. 19.

[5:21]  ¹¹ tn Heb “your neighbor’s.” The pronoun is used in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[5:21]  ¹² tn Heb “or anything that is your neighbor’s.”

[11:2]  ¹³ tn Heb “that not.” The words “I am speaking” have been supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[11:2]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “who have not known and who have not seen the discipline of the Lord.” The collocation of the verbs “know” and “see” indicates that personal experience (knowing by seeing) is in view. The term translated “discipline” (KJV, ASV “chastisement”) may also be rendered “instruction,” but vv. 2b-6 indicate that the referent of the term is the various acts of divine judgment the Israelites had witnessed.

[11:2]  ¹⁵ tn The words “which revealed” have been supplied in the translation to show the logical relationship between the terms that follow and the divine judgments. In the Hebrew text the former are in apposition to the latter.

[11:2]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “his strong hand and his stretched-out arm.”

[11:3]  ¹⁷ tn In the Hebrew text vv. 2-7 are one long sentence. For stylistic reasons the English translation divides the passage into three sentences. To facilitate this stylistic decision the words “They did not see” are supplied at the beginning of both v. 3 and v. 5, and “I am speaking” at the beginning of v. 7.

[11:3]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “his signs and his deeds which he did” (NRSV similar). The collocation of “signs” and “deeds” indicates that these acts were intended to make an impression on observers and reveal something about God’s power (cf. v. 2b). The word “awesome” has been employed to bring out the force of the word “signs” in this context.

[11:4]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “Reed Sea.” “Reed Sea” (or “Sea of Reeds”) is a more accurate rendering of the Hebrew expression יָם סוּף (yam suf), traditionally translated “Red Sea.” See note on the term “Red Sea” in Exod 13:18.

[11:4]  ²⁰ tn Heb “the Lord.” The pronoun has been used in the translation for stylistic reasons to avoid redundancy.

[11:4]  ²¹ tn Heb “and the Lord destroyed them to this day” (cf. NRSV); NLT “he has kept them devastated to this very day.” The translation uses the verb “annihilated” to indicate the permanency of the action.

[31:9]  ²² tn Gordis notes that the word פֶּתַח (petakh, “door”) has sexual connotations in rabbinic literature, based on Prov 7:6ff. (see b. Ketubbot 9b). See also the use in Song 4:12 using a synonym.

[5:27]  ²³ sn A quotation from Exod 20:14; Deut 5:17.