Jeremiah 31:34

31:34 “People will no longer need to teach their neighbors and relatives to know me. ¹  For all of them, from the least important to the most important, will know me,” ²  says the Lord. “For ³  I will forgive their sin and will no longer call to mind the wrong they have done.”

Jeremiah 50:20

50:20 When that time comes,

no guilt will be found in Israel.

No sin will be found in Judah. ⁴ 

For I will forgive those of them I have allowed to survive. ⁵ 

I, the Lord, affirm it!’” ⁶ 

Psalms 51:2

51:2 Wash away my wrongdoing! ⁷ 

Cleanse me of my sin! ⁸ 

Psalms 65:3

65:3 Our record of sins overwhelms me, ⁹ 

but you forgive ¹⁰  our acts of rebellion.

Psalms 85:2-3

85:2 You pardoned ¹¹  the wrongdoing of your people;

you forgave ¹²  all their sin. (Selah)

85:3 You withdrew all your fury;

you turned back from your raging anger. ¹³ 

Isaiah 4:2

The Branch of the Lord

4:2 At that time ¹⁴ 

the crops given by the Lord will bring admiration and honor; ¹⁵ 

the produce of the land will be a source of pride and delight

to those who remain in Israel. ¹⁶ 

Isaiah 44:22

44:22 I remove the guilt of your rebellious deeds as if they were a cloud,

the guilt of your sins as if they were a cloud. ¹⁷ 

Come back to me, for I protect ¹⁸  you.”

Isaiah 56:7

56:7 I will bring them to my holy mountain;

I will make them happy in the temple where people pray to me. ¹⁹ 

Their burnt offerings and sacrifices will be accepted on my altar,

for my temple will be known as a temple where all nations may pray.” ²⁰ 

Ezekiel 36:25

36:25 I will sprinkle you with pure water ²¹  and you will be clean from all your impurities. I will purify you from all your idols.

Ezekiel 36:33

36:33 “‘This is what the sovereign Lord says: In the day I cleanse you from all your sins, I will populate the cities and the ruins will be rebuilt.

Joel 3:21

3:21 I will avenge ²²  their blood which I had not previously acquitted.

It is the Lord who dwells in Zion!

Micah 7:18-19

7:18 There is no other God like you! ²³ 

You ²⁴  forgive sin

and pardon ²⁵  the rebellion

of those who remain among your people. ²⁶ 

You do not remain angry forever, ²⁷ 

but delight in showing loyal love.

7:19 You will once again ²⁸  have mercy on us;

you will conquer ²⁹  our evil deeds;

you will hurl our ³⁰  sins into the depths of the sea. ³¹ 

Zechariah 13:1

The Refinement of Judah

13:1 “In that day there will be a fountain opened up for the dynasty ³²  of David and the people of Jerusalem ³³  to cleanse them from sin and impurity. ³⁴ 

Hebrews 9:11-14

Christ’s Service in the Heavenly Sanctuary

9:11 But now Christ has come ³⁵  as the high priest of the good things to come. He passed through the greater and more perfect tent not made with hands, that is, not of this creation, 9:12 and he entered once for all into the most holy place not by the blood of goats and calves but by his own blood, and so he himself secured ³⁶  eternal redemption. 9:13 For if the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a young cow sprinkled on those who are defiled consecrated them and provided ritual purity, ³⁷  9:14 how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our ³⁸  consciences from dead works to worship the living God.

Hebrews 9:1

The Arrangement and Ritual of the Earthly Sanctuary

9:1 Now the first covenant, ³⁹  in fact, had regulations for worship and its earthly sanctuary.

Hebrews 1:7-9

1:7 And he says ⁴⁰  of the angels, “He makes ⁴¹  his angels spirits and his ministers a flame of fire,” ⁴²  1:8 but of ⁴³  the Son he says, ⁴⁴ 

“Your throne, O God, is forever and ever, ⁴⁵ 

and a righteous scepter ⁴⁶  is the scepter of your kingdom.

1:9 You have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness.

So God, your God, has anointed you over your companions ⁴⁷  with the oil of rejoicing.” ⁴⁸ 

Revelation 1:5

1:5 and from Jesus Christ – the faithful ⁴⁹  witness, ⁵⁰  the firstborn from among the dead, the ruler over the kings of the earth. To the one who loves us and has set us free ⁵¹  from our sins at the cost of ⁵²  his own blood

[31:34]  ¹ tn Heb “teach…, saying, ‘Know the Lord.’” The indirect quote has been chosen for stylistic reasons, i.e., to better parallel the following line.

[31:34]  ² sn This statement should be understood against the background of Jer 8:8-9 where class distinctions were drawn and certain people were considered to have more awareness and responsibility for knowing the law and also Jer 5:1-5 and 9:3-9 where the sinfulness of Israel was seen to be universal across these class distinctions and no trust was to be placed in friends, neighbors, or relatives because all without distinction had cast off God’s yoke (i.e., refused to submit themselves to his authority).

[31:34]  ³ tn The Hebrew particle כִּי (ki) that introduces this clause refers to more than just the preceding clause (i.e., that all will know the Lord) but to all of vv. 31-34a (See BDB 474 s.v. כִּי 3.c).

[50:20]  ⁴ tn Heb “In those days and at that time, oracle of the Lord, the iniquity [or guilt] of Israel will be sought but there will be none and the sins of Judah but they will not be found.” The passive construction “will be sought” raises the question of who is doing the seeking which is not really the main point. The translation has avoided this question by simply referring to the result which is the main point.

[50:20]  ⁵ sn Compare Jer 31:34 and 33:8.

[50:20]  ⁶ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.” In this case it is necessary to place this in the first person because this is already in a quote whose speaker is identified as the Lord (v. 18).

[51:2]  ⁷ tn Heb “Thoroughly wash me from my wrongdoing.”

[51:2]  ⁸ sn In vv. 1b-2 the psalmist uses three different words to emphasize the multifaceted character and degree of his sin. Whatever one wants to call it (“rebellious acts,” “wrongdoing,” “sin”), he has done it and stands morally polluted in God’s sight. The same three words appear in Exod 34:7, which emphasizes that God is willing to forgive sin in all of its many dimensions. In v. 2 the psalmist compares forgiveness and restoration to physical cleansing. Perhaps he likens spiritual cleansing to the purification rites of priestly law.

[65:3]  ⁹ tn Heb “the records of sins are too strong for me.”

[65:3]  ¹⁰ tn Or “make atonement for.”

[85:2]  ¹¹ tn Heb “lifted up.”

[85:2]  ¹² tn Heb “covered over.”

[85:3]  ¹³ tn Heb “the rage of your anger.” The phrase “rage of your anger” employs an appositional genitive. Synonyms are joined in a construct relationship to emphasize the single idea. For a detailed discussion of the grammatical point with numerous examples, see Y. Avishur, “Pairs of Synonymous Words in the Construct State (and in Appositional Hendiadys) in Biblical Hebrew,” Semitics 2 (1971): 17-81. See Pss 69:24; 78:49.

[4:2]  ¹⁴ tn Or “in that day” (KJV).

[4:2]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “and the vegetation of the Lord will become beauty and honor.” Many English versions understand the phrase צֶמַח יְהוָה (tsemakh yÿhvah) as a messianic reference and render it, “the Branch of the Lord” (so KJV, NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV, NLT, and others). Though צֶמַח (tsemakh) is used by later prophets of a royal descendant (Jer 23;5; 33:15; Zech 3:8; 6:12), those passages contain clear contextual indicators that a human ruler is in view and that the word is being used in a metaphorical way of offspring. However, in Isa 4:2 there are no such contextual indicators. To the contrary, in the parallel structure of the verse צֶמַח יְהוָה corresponds to “produce of the land,” a phrase that refers elsewhere exclusively to literal agricultural produce (see Num 13:20, 26; Deut 1:25). In the majority of its uses צֶמַח refers to literal crops or vegetation (in Ps 65:10 the Lord is the source of this vegetation). A reference to the Lord restoring crops would make excellent sense in Isa 4 and the prophets frequently included this theme in their visions of the future age (see Isa 30:23-24; 32:20; Jer 31:12; Ezek 34:26-29; and Amos 9:13-14).

[4:2]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “and the fruit of the land will become pride and beauty for the remnant of Israel.”

[44:22]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “I blot out like a cloud your rebellious deeds, and like a cloud your sins.” “Rebellious deeds” and “sins” stand by metonymy for the guilt they produce. Both עָב (’av) and עָנָן (’anan) refer to the clouds in the sky. It is tempting for stylistic purposes to translate the second with “fog” or “mist” (cf. NAB, NRSV “cloud…mist”; NIV “cloud…morning mist”; NLT “morning mists…clouds”), but this distinction between the synonyms is unwarranted here. The point of the simile seems to be this: The Lord forgives their sins, causing them to vanish just as clouds disappear from the sky (see Job 7:9; 30:15).

[44:22]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “redeem.” See the note at 41:14.

[56:7]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “in the house of my prayer.”

[56:7]  ²⁰ tn Heb “for my house will be called a house of prayer for all the nations.”

[36:25]  ²¹ sn The Lord here uses a metaphor from the realm of ritual purification. For the use of water in ritual cleansing, see Exod 30:19-20; Lev 14:51; Num 19:18; Heb 10:22.

[3:21]  ²² tc The present translation follows the reading וְנִקַּמְתִּי (vÿniqqamti, “I will avenge”) rather than וְנִקֵּתִי (vÿniqqeti, “I will acquit”) of the MT.

[7:18]  ²³ tn Heb “Who is a God like you?” The rhetorical question expects the answer, “No one!”

[7:18]  ²⁴ tn Heb “one who.” The prayer moves from direct address (second person) in v. 18a to a descriptive (third person) style in vv. 18b-19a and then back to direct address (second person) in vv. 19b-20. Due to considerations of English style and the unfamiliarity of the modern reader with alternation of persons in Hebrew poetry, the entire section has been rendered as direct address (second person) in the translation.

[7:18]  ²⁵ tn Heb “pass over.”

[7:18]  ²⁶ tn Heb “of the remnant of his inheritance.”

[7:18]  ²⁷ tn Heb “he does not keep hold of his anger forever.”

[7:19]  ²⁸ tn The verb יָשׁוּב (yashuv, “he will return”) is here used adverbially in relation to the following verb, indicating that the Lord will again show mercy.

[7:19]  ²⁹ tn Some prefer to read יִכְבֹּס (yikhbos, “he will cleanse”; see HALOT 459 s.v. כבס pi). If the MT is taken as it stands, sin is personified as an enemy that the Lord subdues.

[7:19]  ³⁰ tn Heb “their sins,” but the final mem (ם) may be enclitic rather than a pronominal suffix. In this case the suffix from the preceding line (“our”) may be understood as doing double duty.

[7:19]  ³¹ sn In this metaphor the Lord disposes of Israel’s sins by throwing them into the waters of the sea (here symbolic of chaos).

[13:1]  ³² tn Heb “house” (so NIV, NRSV), referring to dynastic descendants.

[13:1]  ³³ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[13:1]  ³⁴ tn Heb “for sin and for impurity.” The purpose implied here has been stated explicitly in the translation for clarity.

[9:11]  ³⁵ tn Grk “But Christ, when he came,” introducing a sentence that includes all of Heb 9:11-12. The main construction is “Christ, having come…, entered…, having secured…,” and everything else describes his entrance.

[9:12]  ³⁶ tn This verb occurs in the Greek middle voice, which here intensifies the role of the subject, Christ, in accomplishing the action: “he alone secured”; “he and no other secured.”

[9:13]  ³⁷ tn Grk “for the purifying of the flesh.” The “flesh” here is symbolic of outward or ritual purity in contrast to inner purity, that of the conscience (cf. Heb 9:9).

[9:14]  ³⁸ tc The reading adopted by the translation is attested by many authorities (A D* K P 365 1739* al). But many others (א D² 0278 33 1739^c 1881 Ï lat sa) read “your” instead of “our.” The diversity of evidence makes this a difficult case to decide from external evidence alone. The first and second person pronouns differ by only one letter in Greek, as in English, also making this problem difficult to decide based on internal evidence and transcriptional probability. In the context, the author’s description of sacrificial activities seems to invite the reader to compare his own possible participation in OT liturgy as over against the completed work of Christ, so the second person pronoun “your” might make more sense. On the other hand, TCGNT 599 argues that “our” is preferable because the author of Hebrews uses direct address (i.e., the second person) only in the hortatory sections. What is more, the author seems to prefer the first person in explanatory remarks or when giving the logical grounds for an assertion (cf. Heb 4:15; 7:14). It is hard to reach a definitive conclusion in this case, but the data lean slightly in favor of the first person pronoun.

[9:1]  ³⁹ tn Grk “the first” (referring to the covenant described in Heb 8:7, 13). In the translation the referent (covenant) has been specified for clarity.

[1:7]  ⁴⁰ sn The Greek correlative conjunctions μέν and δέ (men and de) emphasize the contrastive parallelism of vs. 7 (what God says about the angels) over against vv. 8-9 and vv. 10-12 (what God says about the son).

[1:7]  ⁴¹ tn Grk “He who makes.”

[1:7]  ⁴² sn A quotation from Ps 104:4.

[1:8]  ⁴³ tn Or “to.”

[1:8]  ⁴⁴ tn The verb “he says” (λέγει, legei) is implied from the λέγει of v. 7.

[1:8]  ⁴⁵ tn Or possibly, “Your throne is God forever and ever.” This translation is quite doubtful, however, since (1) in the context the Son is being contrasted to the angels and is presented as far better than they. The imagery of God being the Son’s throne would seem to be of God being his authority. If so, in what sense could this not be said of the angels? In what sense is the Son thus contrasted with the angels? (2) The μέν…δέ (men…de) construction that connects v. 7 with v. 8 clearly lays out this contrast: “On the one hand, he says of the angels…on the other hand, he says of the Son.” Thus, although it is grammatically possible that θεός (qeos) in v. 8 should be taken as a predicate nominative, the context and the correlative conjunctions are decidedly against it. Hebrews 1:8 is thus a strong affirmation of the deity of Christ.

[1:8]  ⁴⁶ tn Grk “the righteous scepter,” but used generically.

[1:9]  ⁴⁷ sn God…has anointed you over your companions. God’s anointing gives the son a superior position and authority over his fellows.

[1:9]  ⁴⁸ sn A quotation from Ps 45:6-7.

[1:5]  ⁴⁹ tn Or “Jesus Christ – the faithful one, the witness…” Some take ὁ πιστός (Jo pistos) as a second substantive in relation to ὁ μάρτυς (Jo martus). In the present translation, however, ὁ πιστός was taken as an adjective in attributive position to ὁ μάρτυς. The idea of martyrdom and faithfulness are intimately connected. See BDAG 820 s.v. πιστός 1.a.α: “ὁ μάρτυς μου ὁ πιστός μου Rv 2:13 (μάρτυς 3); in this ‘book of martyrs’ Christ is ὁ μάρτυς ὁ πιστὸς (καὶ ὁ ἀληθινός) 1:5; 3:14; cp. 19:11 (the combination of ἀληθινός and πιστός in the last two passages is like 3 Macc 2:11). Cp. Rv 17:14.”

[1:5]  ⁵⁰ sn The Greek term translated witness can mean both “witness” and “martyr.”

[1:5]  ⁵¹ tc The reading “set free” (λύσαντι, lusanti) has better ms support (̹⁸ א A C 1611 2050 2329 2351 Ï^A sy) than its rival, λούσαντι (lousanti, “washed”; found in P 1006 1841 1854 2053 2062 Ï^K lat bo). Internally, it seems that the reading “washed” could have arisen in at least one of three ways: (1) as an error of hearing (both “released” and “washed” are pronounced similarly in Greek); (2) an error of sight (both “released” and “washed” look very similar – a difference of only one letter – which could have resulted in a simple error during the copying of a ms); (3) through scribal inability to appreciate that the Hebrew preposition ב can be used with a noun to indicate the price paid for something. Since the author of Revelation is influenced significantly by a Semitic form of Greek (e.g., 13:10), and since the Hebrew preposition “in” (ב) can indicate the price paid for something, and is often translated with the preposition “in” (ἐν, en) in the LXX, the author may have tried to communicate by the use of ἐν the idea of a price paid for something. That is, John was trying to say that Christ delivered us at the price of his own blood. This whole process, however, may have been lost on a later scribe, who being unfamiliar with Hebrew, found the expression “delivered in his blood” too difficult, and noticing the obvious similarities between λύσαντι and λούσαντι, assumed an error and then proceeded to change the text to “washed in his blood” – a thought more tolerable in his mind. Both readings, of course, are true to scripture; the current question is what the author wrote in this verse.

[1:5]  ⁵² tn The style here is somewhat Semitic, with the use of the ἐν (en) + the dative to mean “at the price of.” The addition of “own” in the English is stylistic and is an attempt to bring out the personal nature of the statement and the sacrificial aspect of Jesus’ death – a frequent refrain in the Apocalypse.