Leviticus 20:3

20:3 I myself will set my face ¹  against that man and cut him off from the midst of his people, ²  because he has given some of his children to Molech and thereby defiled my sanctuary and profaned my holy name. ³ 

Leviticus 20:5-6

20:5 I myself will set my face against that man and his clan. I will cut off from the midst of their people both him and all who follow after him in spiritual prostitution, ⁴  to commit prostitution by worshiping Molech. ⁵ 

Prohibition against Spiritists and Mediums ⁶ 

20:6 “‘The person who turns to the spirits of the dead and familiar spirits ⁷  to commit prostitution by going after them, I will set my face ⁸  against that person and cut him off from the midst of his people.

Genesis 17:14

17:14 Any uncircumcised male ⁹  who has not been circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin will be cut off ¹⁰  from his people – he has failed to carry out my requirement.” ¹¹ 

Jeremiah 15:7

15:7 The Lord continued, ¹² 

“In every town in the land I will purge them

like straw blown away by the wind. ¹³ 

I will destroy my people.

I will kill off their children.

I will do so because they did not change their behavior. ¹⁴ 

Ezekiel 14:9

14:9 “‘As for the prophet, if he is made a fool by being deceived into speaking a prophetic word – I, the Lord, have made a fool of ¹⁵  that prophet, and I will stretch out my hand against him and destroy him from among my people Israel.

Zephaniah 2:5

2:5 Those who live by the sea, the people who came from Crete, ¹⁶  are as good as dead. ¹⁷ 

The Lord has decreed your downfall, ¹⁸  Canaan, land of the Philistines:

“I will destroy everyone who lives there!” ¹⁹ 

Zephaniah 2:1

The Prophet Warns the People

2:1 Bunch yourselves together like straw, ²⁰  you undesirable ²¹  nation,

Colossians 3:17

3:17 And whatever you do in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

[20:3]  ¹ tn Heb “And I, I shall give my faces.”

[20:3]  ² sn On the “cut off” penalty see the notes on Lev 7:20 and 17:4.

[20:3]  ³ tn Heb “for the sake of defiling my sanctuary and to profane my holy name.”

[20:5]  ⁴ tn The adjective “spiritual” has been supplied in the translation to clarify that this is not a reference to literal prostitution, but figuratively compares idolatry to prostitution.

[20:5]  ⁵ tn Heb “to commit harlotry after Molech.” The translation employs “worshiping” here for clarity (cf. NAB, NCV, TEV, CEV, NLT). On the “cut off” penalty see the note on Lev 7:20.

[20:6]  ⁶ sn For structure and coherence in Lev 20:6-27 see the note on v. 27 below.

[20:6]  ⁷ tn See the note on the phrase “familiar spirits” in Lev 19:31 above.

[20:6]  ⁸ tn Heb “I will give my faces.”

[17:14]  ⁹ tn The disjunctive clause calls attention to the “uncircumcised male” and what will happen to him.

[17:14]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “that person will be cut off.” The words “that person” have not been included in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[17:14]  ¹¹ tn Heb “he has broken my covenant.” The noun בְּרִית (bÿrit) here refers to the obligation required by God in conjunction with the covenantal agreement. For the range of meaning of the term, see the note on the word “requirement” in v. 9.

[15:7]  ¹² tn The words “The Lord continued” are not in the text. They have been supplied in the translation to show the shift back to talking about the people instead of addressing them. The obvious speaker is the Lord; the likely listener is Jeremiah as in vv. 1-4.

[15:7]  ¹³ tn Heb “I have winnowed them with a winnowing fork in the gates of the land.” The word “gates” is here being used figuratively for the cities, the part for the whole. See 14:2 and the notes there.

[15:7]  ¹⁴ tn Or “did not repent of their wicked ways”; Heb “They did not turn back from their ways.” There is no casual particle here (either כִּי [ki], which is more formally casual, or וְ [vÿ], which sometimes introduces casual circumstantial clauses). The causal idea is furnished by the connection of ideas. If the verbs throughout this section are treated as pasts and this section seen as a lament, then the clause could be sequential: “but they still did not turn…”

[14:9]  ¹⁵ tn The translation is uncertain due to difficulty both in determining the meaning of the verb’s stem and its conjugation in this context. In the Qal stem the basic meaning of the verbal root פָּתַה (patah) is “to be gullible, foolish.” The doubling stems (the Pual and Piel used in this verse) typically give such stative verbs a factitive sense, hence either “make gullible” (i.e., “entice”) or “make into a fool” (i.e., “to show to be a fool”). The latter represents the probable meaning of the term in Jer 20:7, 10 and is followed here (see L. C. Allen, Ezekiel [WBC], 1:193; R. Mosis “Ez 14, 1-11 - ein Ruf zur Umkehr,” BZ 19 [1975]: 166-69 and ThWAT 4:829-31). In this view, if a prophet speaks when not prompted by God, he will be shown to be a fool, but this does not reflect negatively on the Lord because it is God who shows him to be a fool. Secondly, the verb is in the perfect conjugation and may be translated “I have made a fool of him” or “I have enticed him,” or to show determination (see IBHS 439-41 §27.2f and g), or in certain syntactical constructions as future. Any of these may be plausible if the doubling stems used are understood in the sense of “making a fool of.” But if understood as “to make gullible,” more factors come into play. As the Hebrew verbal form is a perfect, it is often translated as present perfect: “I have enticed.” In this case the Lord states that he himself enticed the prophet to cooperate with the idolaters. Such enticement to sin would seem to be a violation of God’s moral character, but sometimes he does use such deception and enticement to sin as a form of punishment against those who have blatantly violated his moral will (see, e.g., 2 Sam 24). If one follows this line of interpretation in Ezek 14:9, one would have to assume that the prophet had already turned from God in his heart. However, the context gives no indication of this. Therefore, it is better to take the perfect as indicating certitude and to translate it with the future tense: “I will entice.” In this case the Lord announces that he will judge the prophet appropriately. If a prophet allows himself to be influenced by idolaters, then the Lord will use deception as a form of punishment against that deceived prophet. A comparison with the preceding oracles also favors this view. In 14:4 the perfect of certitude is used for emphasis (see “I will answer”), though in v. 7 a participle is employed. For a fuller discussion of this text, see R. B. Chisholm, Jr., “Does God Deceive?” BSac 155 (1998): 23-25.

[2:5]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “Kerethites,” a people settled alongside the Philistines in the coastal areas of southern Palestine (cf. 1 Sam 30:14; Ezek 25:16). They originally came from the island of Crete.

[2:5]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “Woe, inhabitants of the coast of the sea, nation of Kerethites.” The Hebrew term הוֹי (hoy, “ah, woe”), is used to mourn the dead and express outwardly one’s sorrow (see 1 Kgs 13:30; Jer 22:18; 34:5). By using it here the prophet mourns in advance the downfall of the Philistines, thereby emphasizing the certainty of their demise (“as good as dead”). Some argue the word does not have its earlier connotation here and is simply an attention-getting interjection, equivalent to “Hey!”

[2:5]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “the word of the Lord is against you.”

[2:5]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “I will destroy you so there is no inhabitant [remaining].”

[2:1]  ²⁰ tn The Hebrew text combines a Hitpolel imperative of קָשַׁשׁ (qashash) with a Qal imperative of the same root. Elsewhere this root appears in the polel stem with the meaning “gather stubble.” Zephaniah’s command is ironic, implying the people are like stubble or straw. As such, they are vulnerable to the Lord’s fiery judgment that will quickly consume them (see 1:18). See Adele Berlin, Zephaniah (AB 25A), 96.

[2:1]  ²¹ tn Some relate this word to an Aramaic cognate meaning “to be ashamed.” With the negative particle it would then mean “unashamed” (cf. NIV “shameful”; NRSV “shameless”). However, elsewhere in biblical Hebrew the verb means “to desire,” or with the negative particle “undesirable.” Cf. also NEB “unruly.”