Leviticus 10:9

10:9 “Do not drink wine or strong drink, you and your sons with you, when you enter into the Meeting Tent, so that you do not die, which is a perpetual statute throughout your generations, ¹ 

Jude 1:14

1:14 Now Enoch, the seventh in descent beginning with Adam, ²  even prophesied of them, ³  saying, “Look! The Lord is coming ⁴  with thousands and thousands ⁵  of his holy ones,

Proverbs 31:4-5

31:4 It is not for kings, ⁶  O Lemuel,

it is not for kings to drink wine, ⁷ 

or for rulers to crave strong drink, ⁸ 

31:5 lest they drink and forget what is decreed,

and remove ⁹  from all the poor ¹⁰  their legal rights. ¹¹ 

Jeremiah 35:6-8

35:6 But they answered, “We do not drink wine because our ancestor Jonadab son of Rechab commanded us not to. He told us, ‘You and your children must never drink wine. 35:7 Do not build houses. Do not plant crops. Do not plant a vineyard or own one. ¹²  Live in tents all your lives. If you do these things you will ¹³  live a long time in the land that you wander about on.’ ¹⁴  35:8 We and our wives and our sons and daughters have obeyed everything our ancestor Jonadab commanded us. We have never drunk wine. ¹⁵ 

Amos 2:12

2:12 “But you made the Nazirites drink wine; ¹⁶ 

you commanded the prophets, ‘Do not prophesy!’

Luke 1:15

1:15 for he will be great in the sight of ¹⁷  the Lord. He ¹⁸  must never drink wine or strong drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even before his birth. ¹⁹ 

Luke 7:33-34

7:33 For John the Baptist has come ²⁰  eating no bread and drinking no wine, ²¹  and you say, ‘He has a demon!’ ²²  7:34 The Son of Man has come eating and drinking, and you say, ‘Look at him, ²³  a glutton and a drunk, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ ²⁴ 

Luke 21:34

Be Ready!

21:34 “But be on your guard ²⁵  so that your hearts are not weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life, and that day close down upon you suddenly like a trap. ²⁶ 

Ephesians 5:18

5:18 And do not get drunk with wine, which ²⁷  is debauchery, ²⁸  but be filled by the Spirit, ²⁹ 

Ephesians 5:1

Live in Love

5:1 Therefore, be ³⁰  imitators of God as dearly loved children

Ephesians 5:22

Exhortations to Households

5:22 ³¹ Wives, submit ³²  to your husbands as to the Lord,

Ephesians 5:1

Live in Love

5:1 Therefore, be ³³  imitators of God as dearly loved children

Ephesians 5:23

5:23 because the husband is the head of the wife as also Christ is the head of the church – he himself being the savior of the body.

[10:9]  ¹ tn Heb “a perpetual statute for your generations”; NAB “a perpetual ordinance”; NRSV “a statute forever”; NLT “a permanent law.” The Hebrew grammar here suggests that the last portion of v. 9 functions as both a conclusion to v. 9 and an introduction to vv. 10-11. It is a pivot clause, as it were. Thus, it was a “perpetual statute” to not drink alcoholic beverages when ministering in the tabernacle, but it was also a “perpetual statue” to distinguish between holy and profane and unclean and clean (v. 10) as well as to teach the children of Israel all such statutes (v. 11).

[1:14]  ² tn Grk “the seventh from Adam.”

[1:14]  ³ tn Grk “against them.” The dative τούτοις (toutois) is a dativus incommodi (dative of disadvantage).

[1:14]  ⁴ tn Grk “has come,” a proleptic aorist.

[1:14]  ⁵ tn Grk “ten thousands.” The word μυριάς (muria"), from which the English myriad is derived, means “ten thousand.” In the plural it means “ten thousands.” This would mean, minimally, 20,000 (a multiple of ten thousand). At the same time, the term was often used in apocalyptic literature to represent simply a rather large number, without any attempt to be specific.

[31:4]  ⁶ tn Heb “[It is] not for kings.”

[31:4]  ⁷ sn This second warning for kings concerns the use of alcohol. If this passage is meant to prohibit any use of alcohol by kings, it would be unheard of in any ancient royal court. What is probably meant is an excessive and unwarranted use of alcohol, or a troubling need for it, so that the meaning is “to drink wine in excess” (cf. NLT “to guzzle wine”; CEV “should not get drunk”). The danger, of course, would be that excessive use of alcohol would cloud the mind and deprive a king of true administrative ability and justice.

[31:4]  ⁸ tn The MT has אֵו (’ev), a Kethib/Qere reading. The Kethib is אוֹ (’o) but the Qere is אֵי (’ey). Some follow the Qere and take the word as a shortened form of וַֹיֵּה, “where?” This would mean the ruler would be always asking for drink (cf. ASV). Others reconstruct to אַוֵּה (’avveh, “to desire; to crave”). In either case, the verse would be saying that a king is not to be wanting/seeking alcohol.

[31:5]  ⁹ tn The verb means “change,” perhaps expressed in reversing decisions or removing rights.

[31:5]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “all the children of poverty.” This expression refers to the poor by nature. Cf. KJV, NASB, NRSV “the afflicted”; NIV “oppressed.”

[31:5]  ¹¹ sn The word is דִּין (din, “judgment”; so KJV). In this passage it refers to the cause or the plea for justice, i.e., the “legal rights.”

[35:7]  ¹² tn Heb “Don’t plant a vineyard and it shall not be to you [= and you shall/must not have one].”

[35:7]  ¹³ tn Heb “Don’t…and don’t…but live…in order that you might….”

[35:7]  ¹⁴ sn Heb “where you are sojourning.” The terms “sojourn” and “sojourner” referred to a person who resided in a country not his own, without the rights and privileges of citizenship as a member of a nation, state, or principality. In the ancient Near East such people were dependent on the laws of hospitality rather than the laws of state for protection and provision of legal rights. Perhaps the best illustration of this is Abraham who “sojourned” among the Philistines and the Hittites in Canaan and was dependent upon them for grazing and water rights and for a place to bury his wife (cf. Gen 20-24). What is described here is the typical lifestyle of a nomadic tribe.

[35:8]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “We have not drunk wine all our days.” Actually vv. 8b-9a are a series of infinitive constructs plus the negative לְבִלְתִּי (lÿvilti) explaining the particulars of how they have obeyed, i.e., by not drinking wine…and by not building….” The more direct declarative statement is used here to shorten the sentence and is more in keeping with contemporary style.

[2:12]  ¹⁶ sn Nazirites were strictly forbidden to drink wine (Num 6:2-3).

[1:15]  ¹⁷ tn Grk “before.”

[1:15]  ¹⁸ tn Grk “and he”; because of the length and complexity of the Greek sentence, the conjunction καί (kai) has not been translated here. Instead a new English sentence is begun in the translation.

[1:15]  ¹⁹ tn Grk “even from his mother’s womb.” While this idiom may be understood to refer to the point of birth (“even from his birth”), Luke 1:41 suggests that here it should be understood to refer to a time before birth.

[7:33]  ²⁰ tn The perfect tenses in both this verse and the next do more than mere aorists would. They not only summarize, but suggest the characteristics of each ministry were still in existence at the time of speaking.

[7:33]  ²¹ tn Grk “neither eating bread nor drinking wine,” but this is somewhat awkward in contemporary English.

[7:33]  ²² sn John the Baptist was too separatist and ascetic for some, and so he was accused of not being directed by God, but by a demon.

[7:34]  ²³ tn Grk “Behold a man.”

[7:34]  ²⁴ sn Neither were they happy with Jesus (the Son of Man), even though he was the opposite of John and associated freely with people like tax collectors and sinners. Either way, God’s messengers were subject to complaint.

[21:34]  ²⁵ tn Grk “watch out for yourselves.”

[21:34]  ²⁶ sn Or like a thief, see Luke 12:39-40. The metaphor of a trap is a vivid one. Most modern English translations traditionally place the words “like a trap” at the end of v. 34, completing the metaphor. In the Greek text (and in the NRSV and REB) the words “like a trap” are placed at the beginning of v. 35. This does not affect the meaning.

[5:18]  ²⁷ tn Grk “in which.”

[5:18]  ²⁸ tn Or “dissipation.” See BDAG 148 s.v. ἀσωτία.

[5:18]  ²⁹ tn Many have taken ἐν πνεύματι (en pneumati) as indicating content, i.e., one is to be filled with the Spirit. ExSyn 375 states, “There are no other examples in biblical Greek in which ἐν + the dative after πληρόω indicates content. Further, the parallel with οἴνῳ as well as the common grammatical category of means suggest that the idea intended is that believers are to be filled by means of the [Holy] Spirit. If so there seems to be an unnamed agent. The meaning of this text can only be fully appreciated in light of the πληρόω language in Ephesians. Always the term is used in connection with a member of the Trinity. Three considerations seem to be key: (1) In Eph 3:19 the ‘hinge’ prayer introducing the last half of the letter makes a request that the believers ‘be filled with all the fullness of God’ (πληρωθῆτε εἰς πᾶν πλήρωμα τοῦ θεοῦ). The explicit content of πληρόω is thus God’s fullness (probably a reference to his moral attributes). (2) In 4:10 Christ is said to be the agent of filling (with v. 11 adding the specifics of his giving spiritual gifts). (3) The author then brings his argument to a crescendo in 5:18: Believers are to be filled by Christ by means of the Spirit with the content of the fullness of God.”

[5:1]  ³⁰ tn Or “become.”

[5:22]  ³¹ tn Many scholars regard Eph 5:21 as the verse which introduces this section, rather than 5:22. This is due in part to the lack of a main verb in this verse (see tc note which follows). This connection is not likely, however, because it requires the participle ὑποτασσόμενοι (Jupotassomenoi, “submitting”) in 5:21 to act as the main verb of the section, and this participle more likely is linked to the command “be filled by the Spirit” in 5:18 as a participle of result (see sn above). In any case, 5:21 does form a strong link between 5:18-21 and what follows, so the paragraph division which has been placed between 5:21 and 22 should not be viewed as a complete break in the author’s thought.

[5:22]  ³² tc The witnesses for the shorter reading (in which the verb “submit” is only implied) are minimal (Ì⁴⁶ B Cl Hier^mss), but significant and early. The rest of the witnesses add one of two verb forms as required by the sense of the passage (picking up the verb from v. 21). Several of these witnesses have ὑποτασσέσθωσαν (Jupotassesqwsan), the third person imperative (so א A I P Ψ 0278 33 81 1175 1739 1881 al lat co), while other witnesses, especially the later Byzantine cursives, read ὑποτάσσεσθε (Jupotassesqe), the second person imperative (D F G Ï sy). The text virtually begs for one of these two verb forms, but the often cryptic style of Paul’s letters argues for the shorter reading. The chronology of development seems to have been no verb – third person imperative – second person imperative. It is not insignificant that early lectionaries began a new day’s reading with v. 22; these most likely caused copyists to add the verb at this juncture.

[5:1]  ³³ tn Or “become.”