Proverbs 3:29

3:29 Do not plot ¹  evil against your neighbor

when ²  he dwells by you unsuspectingly.

Proverbs 12:12

12:12 The wicked person desires a stronghold, ³ 

but the righteous root ⁴  endures. ⁵ 

Psalms 36:4

36:4 He plans ways to sin while he lies in bed;

he is committed to a sinful lifestyle; ⁶ 

he does not reject what is evil. ⁷ 

Psalms 52:2-3

52:2 Your tongue carries out your destructive plans; ⁸ 

it is as effective as a sharp razor, O deceiver. ⁹ 

52:3 You love evil more than good,

lies more than speaking the truth. ¹⁰  (Selah)

Mark 7:21-22

7:21 For from within, out of the human heart, come evil ideas, sexual immorality, theft, murder, 7:22 adultery, greed, evil, deceit, debauchery, envy, slander, pride, and folly.

Mark 7:1

Breaking Human Traditions

7:1 Now ¹¹  the Pharisees ¹²  and some of the experts in the law ¹³  who came from Jerusalem ¹⁴  gathered around him.

Colossians 1:6

1:6 that has come to you. Just as in the entire world this gospel ¹⁵  is bearing fruit and growing, so it has also been bearing fruit and growing ¹⁶  among you from the first day you heard it and understood the grace of God in truth.

James 4:1-5

Passions and Pride

4:1 Where do the conflicts and where ¹⁷  do the quarrels among you come from? Is it not from this, ¹⁸  from your passions that battle inside you? ¹⁹  4:2 You desire and you do not have; you murder and envy and you cannot obtain; you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask; 4:3 you ask and do not receive because you ask wrongly, so you can spend it on your passions.

4:4 Adulterers, do you not know that friendship with the world means hostility toward God? ²⁰  So whoever decides to be the world’s friend makes himself God’s enemy. 4:5 Or do you think the scripture means nothing when it says, ²¹  “The spirit that God ²²  caused ²³  to live within us has an envious yearning”? ²⁴ 

James 4:1

Passions and Pride

4:1 Where do the conflicts and where ²⁵  do the quarrels among you come from? Is it not from this, ²⁶  from your passions that battle inside you? ²⁷ 

James 2:16

2:16 and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, keep warm and eat well,” but you do not give them what the body needs, ²⁸  what good is it?

[3:29]  ¹ sn The verb חָרַשׁ (kharash) means “to cut in; to engrave; to plough; to devise.” The idea of plotting is metaphorical for working, practicing or fabricating (BDB 360 s.v.).

[3:29]  ² tn The vav (ו) prefixed to the pronoun introduces a disjunctive circumstantial clause: “when….”

[12:12]  ³ tn This line is difficult to interpret. BDB connects the term מְצוֹד (mÿtsod) to II מָצוֹד which means (1) “snare; hunting-net” and (2) what is caught: “prey” (BDB 844-45 s.v. II מָצוֹד). This would function as a metonymy of cause for what the net catches: the prey. Or it may be saying that the wicked get caught in their own net, that is, reap the consequences of their own sins. On the other hand, HALOT 622 connects מְצוֹד (mÿtsod) to II מְצוּדָה (mÿtsudah, “mountain stronghold”; cf. NAB “the stronghold of evil men will be demolished”). The LXX translated it as: “The desires of the wicked are evil.” The Syriac has: “The wicked desire to do evil.” The Latin expands it: “The desire of the wicked is a defense of the worst [things, or persons].” C. H. Toy suggests emending the text to read “wickedness is the net of bad men” (Proverbs [ICC], 250).

[12:12]  ⁴ tn Heb “the root of righteousness.” The genitive צַדִּיקִים (tsadiqim, “righteousness”) functions as an attributive adjective. The wicked want what belongs to others, but the righteous continue to flourish.

[12:12]  ⁵ tc The MT reads יִתֵּן (yitten, “gives,” from נָתַן [natan, “to give”]), and yields an awkward meaning: “the root of the righteous gives.” The LXX reads “the root of the righteous endures” (cf. NAB). This suggests a Hebrew Vorlage of אֵיתָן (’etan, “constant; continual”; HALOT 44-45 s.v. I אֵיתָן 2) which would involve the omission of א (alef) in the MT. The metaphor “root” (שֹׁרֶשׁ, shoresh) is often used in Proverbs for that which endures; so internal evidence supports the alternate tradition.

[36:4]  ⁶ tn Heb “he takes a stand in a way [that is] not good.” The word “way” here refers metaphorically to behavior or life style.

[36:4]  ⁷ tn The three imperfect verbal forms in v. 4 highlight the characteristic behavior of the typical evildoer.

[52:2]  ⁸ tn Heb “destruction your tongue devises.”

[52:2]  ⁹ tn Heb “like a sharpened razor, doer of deceit.” The masculine participle עָשָׂה (’asah) is understood as a substantival vocative, addressed to the powerful man.

[52:3]  ¹⁰ tn Or “deceit more than speaking what is right.”

[7:1]  ¹¹ tn Grk “And.” Here καί (kai) has been translated as “now” to indicate the transition to a new topic.

[7:1]  ¹² sn See the note on Pharisees in 2:16.

[7:1]  ¹³ tn Or “and some of the scribes.” See the note on the phrase “experts in the law” in 1:22.

[7:1]  ¹⁴ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[1:6]  ¹⁵ tn Grk “just as in the entire world it is bearing fruit.” The antecedent (“the gospel”) of the implied subject (“it”) of ἐστιν (estin) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[1:6]  ¹⁶ tn Though the participles are periphrastic with the present tense verb ἐστίν (estin), the presence of the temporal indicator “from the day” in the next clause indicates that this is a present tense that reaches into the past and should be translated as “has been bearing fruit and growing.” For a discussion of this use of the present tense, see ExSyn 519-20.

[4:1]  ¹⁷ tn The word “where” is repeated in Greek for emphasis.

[4:1]  ¹⁸ tn Grk “from here.”

[4:1]  ¹⁹ tn Grk “in your members [i.e., parts of the body].”

[4:4]  ²⁰ tn Grk “is hostility toward God.”

[4:5]  ²¹ tn Grk “vainly says.”

[4:5]  ²² tn Grk “he”; the referent (God) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[4:5]  ²³ tc The Byzantine text and a few other mss (P 33 Ï) have the intransitive κατῴκησεν (katwkhsen) here, which turns τὸ πνεῦμα (to pneuma) into the subject of the verb: “The spirit which lives within us.” But the more reliable and older witnesses (Ì⁷⁴ א B Ψ 049 1241 1739 al) have the causative verb, κατῴκισεν (katwkisen), which implies a different subject and τὸ πνεῦμα as the object: “The spirit that he causes to live within us.” Both because of the absence of an explicit subject and the relative scarcity of the causative κατοικίζω (katoikizw, “cause to dwell”) compared to the intransitive κατοικέω (katoikew, “live, dwell”) in biblical Greek (κατοικίζω does not occur in the NT at all, and occurs one twelfth as frequently as κατοικέω in the LXX), it is easy to see why scribes would replace κατῴκισεν with κατῴκησεν. Thus, on internal and external grounds, κατῴκισεν is the preferred reading.

[4:5]  ²⁴ tn Interpreters debate the referent of the word “spirit” in this verse: (1) The translation takes “spirit” to be the lustful capacity within people that produces a divided mind (1:8, 14) and inward conflicts regarding God (4:1-4). God has allowed it to be in man since the fall, and he provides his grace (v. 6) and the new birth through the gospel message (1:18-25) to counteract its evil effects. (2) On the other hand the word “spirit” may be taken positively as the Holy Spirit and the sense would be, “God yearns jealously for the Spirit he caused to live within us.” But the word for “envious” or “jealous” is generally negative in biblical usage and the context before and after seems to favor the negative interpretation.

[4:1]  ²⁵ tn The word “where” is repeated in Greek for emphasis.

[4:1]  ²⁶ tn Grk “from here.”

[4:1]  ²⁷ tn Grk “in your members [i.e., parts of the body].”

[2:16]  ²⁸ tn Grk “what is necessary for the body.”