Matthew 13:41

13:41 The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will gather from his kingdom everything that causes sin as well as all lawbreakers. ¹ 

Matthew 13:49-50

13:49 It will be this way at the end of the age. Angels will come and separate the evil from the righteous 13:50 and throw them into the fiery furnace, ²  where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Malachi 3:2-3

3:2 Who can endure the day of his coming? Who can keep standing when he appears? For he will be like a refiner’s fire, ³  like a launderer’s soap. 3:3 He will act like a refiner and purifier of silver and will cleanse the Levites and refine them like gold and silver. Then they will offer the Lord a proper offering.

Malachi 4:1

4:1 (3:19) ⁴  “For indeed the day ⁵  is coming, burning like a furnace, and all the arrogant evildoers will be chaff. The coming day will burn them up,” says the Lord who rules over all. “It ⁶  will not leave even a root or branch.

John 15:2

15:2 He takes away ⁷  every branch that does not bear ⁸  fruit in me. He ⁹  prunes ¹⁰  every branch that bears ¹¹  fruit so that it will bear more fruit.

[13:41]  ¹ tn Grk “the ones who practice lawlessness.”

[13:50]  ² sn An allusion to Dan 3:6.

[3:2]  ³ sn The refiner’s fire was used to purify metal and refine it by melting it and allowing the dross, which floated to the top, to be scooped off.

[4:1]  ⁴ sn Beginning with 4:1, the verse numbers through 4:6 in the English Bible differ from the verse numbers in the Hebrew text (BHS), with 4:1 ET = 3:19 HT, 4:2 ET = 3:20 HT, etc., through 4:6 ET = 3:24 HT. Thus the book of Malachi in the Hebrew Bible has only three chapters, with 24 verses in ch. 3.

[4:1]  ⁵ sn This day is the well-known “day of the Lord” so pervasive in OT eschatological texts (see Joel 2:30-31; Amos 5:18; Obad 15). For the believer it is a day of grace and salvation; for the sinner, a day of judgment and destruction.

[4:1]  ⁶ tn Heb “so that it” (so NASB, NRSV). For stylistic reasons a new sentence was begun here in the translation.

[15:2]  ⁷ tn Or “He cuts off.”

[15:2]  ⁸ tn Or “does not yield.”

[15:2]  ⁹ tn Grk “And he”; the conjunction καί (kai, “and”) has been omitted in the translation in keeping with the tendency in contemporary English style to use shorter sentences.

[15:2]  ¹⁰ tn Or “trims”; Grk “cleanses” (a wordplay with “clean” in v. 3). Καθαίρει (kaqairei) is not the word one would have expected here, but it provides the transition from the vine imagery to the disciples – there is a wordplay (not reproducible in English) between αἴρει (airei) and καθαίρει in this verse. While the purpose of the Father in cleansing his people is clear, the precise means by which he does so is not immediately obvious. This will become clearer, however, in the following verse.

[15:2]  ¹¹ tn Or “that yields.”