Proverbs 5:11-12

5:11 And at the end of your life ¹  you will groan ² 

when your flesh and your body are wasted away. ³ 

5:12 And you will say, “How I hated discipline!

My heart spurned reproof!

Proverbs 5:22-23

5:22 The wicked ⁴  will be captured by his ⁵  own iniquities, ⁶ 

and he will be held ⁷  by the cords of his own sin. ⁸ 

5:23 He will die because ⁹  there was no discipline;

because of the greatness of his folly ¹⁰  he will reel. ¹¹ 

Ezekiel 18:31

18:31 Throw away all your sins you have committed and fashion yourselves a new heart and a new spirit! ¹²  Why should you die, O house of Israel?

Ezekiel 33:11

33:11 Say to them, ‘As surely as I live, declares the sovereign Lord, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but prefer that the wicked change his behavior ¹³  and live. Turn back, turn back from your evil deeds! ¹⁴  Why should you die, O house of Israel?’

John 15:23-24

15:23 The one who hates me hates my Father too. 15:24 If I had not performed ¹⁵  among them the miraculous deeds ¹⁶  that no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin. ¹⁷  But now they have seen the deeds ¹⁸  and have hated both me and my Father. ¹⁹ 

John 15:1

The Vine and the Branches

15:1 “I am the true vine ²⁰  and my Father is the gardener. ²¹ 

Colossians 1:22

1:22 but now he has reconciled you ²²  by his physical body through death to present you holy, without blemish, and blameless before him –

[5:11]  ¹ tn Heb “at your end.”

[5:11]  ² tn The form is the perfect tense with the vav consecutive; it is equal to a specific future within this context.

[5:11]  ³ tn Heb “in the finishing of your flesh and your body.” The construction uses the Qal infinitive construct of כָּלָה (calah) in a temporal clause; the verb means “be complete, at an end, finished, spent.”

[5:22]  ⁴ tn The suffix on the verb is the direct object suffix; “the wicked” is a second object by apposition: They capture him, the wicked. Since “the wicked” is not found in the LXX, it could be an old scribal error; or the Greek translator may have simply smoothed out the sentence. C. H. Toy suggests turning the sentence into a passive idea: “The wicked will be caught in his iniquities” (Proverbs [ICC], 117).

[5:22]  ⁵ tn The word is the subject of the clause, but the pronominal suffix has no clear referent. The suffix is proleptic, referring to the wicked.

[5:22]  ⁶ tn Heb “his own iniquities will capture the wicked.” The translation shifts the syntax for the sake of smoothness and readability.

[5:22]  ⁷ sn The lack of discipline and control in the area of sexual gratification is destructive. The one who plays with this kind of sin will become ensnared by it and led to ruin.

[5:22]  ⁸ tn The Hebrew is structured chiastically: “his own iniquities will capture the wicked, by the cords of his own sin will he be held.”

[5:23]  ⁹ tn The preposition בּ (bet) is used in a causal sense: “because” (cf. NCV, TEV, CEV).

[5:23]  ¹⁰ sn The word אִוַּלְתּוֹ (’ivvalto, “his folly”) is from the root אול and is related to the noun אֶוִיל (’evil, “foolish; fool”). The noun אִוֶּלֶת (’ivvelet, “folly”) describes foolish and destructive activity. It lacks understanding, destroys what wisdom builds, and leads to destruction if it is not corrected.

[5:23]  ¹¹ sn The verb שָׁגָה (shagah, “to swerve; to reel”) is repeated in a negative sense. If the young man is not captivated by his wife but is captivated with a stranger in sinful acts, then his own iniquities will captivate him and he will be led to ruin.

[18:31]  ¹² sn In Ezek 11:19, 36:26 the new heart and new spirit are promised as future blessings.

[33:11]  ¹³ tn Heb “turn from his way.”

[33:11]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “ways.” This same word is translated “behavior” earlier in the verse.

[15:24]  ¹⁵ tn Or “If I had not done.”

[15:24]  ¹⁶ tn Grk “the works.”

[15:24]  ¹⁷ tn Grk “they would not have sin” (an idiom).

[15:24]  ¹⁸ tn The words “the deeds” are supplied to clarify from context what was seen. Direct objects in Greek were often omitted when clear from the context.

[15:24]  ¹⁹ tn Or “But now they have both seen and hated both me and my Father.” It is possible to understand both the “seeing” and the “hating” to refer to both Jesus and the Father, but this has the world “seeing” the Father, which seems alien to the Johannine Jesus. (Some point out John 14:9 as an example, but this is addressed to the disciples, not to the world.) It is more likely that the “seeing” refers to the miraculous deeds mentioned in the first half of the verse. Such an understanding of the first “both – and” construction is apparently supported by BDF §444.3.

[15:1]  ²⁰ sn I am the true vine. There are numerous OT passages which refer to Israel as a vine: Ps 80:8-16, Isa 5:1-7, Jer 2:21, Ezek 15:1-8, 17:5-10, 19:10-14, and Hos 10:1. The vine became symbolic of Israel, and even appeared on some coins issued by the Maccabees. The OT passages which use this symbol appear to regard Israel as faithless to Yahweh (typically rendered as “Lord” in the OT) and/or the object of severe punishment. Ezek 15:1-8 in particular talks about the worthlessness of wood from a vine (in relation to disobedient Judah). A branch cut from a vine is worthless except to be burned as fuel. This fits more with the statements about the disciples (John 15:6) than with Jesus’ description of himself as the vine. Ezek 17:5-10 contains vine imagery which refers to a king of the house of David, Zedekiah, who was set up as king in Judah by Nebuchadnezzar. Zedekiah allied himself to Egypt and broke his covenant with Nebuchadnezzar (and therefore also with God), which would ultimately result in his downfall (17:20-21). Ezek 17:22-24 then describes the planting of a cedar sprig which grows into a lofty tree, a figurative description of Messiah. But it is significant that Messiah himself is not described in Ezek 17 as a vine, but as a cedar tree. The vine imagery here applies to Zedekiah’s disobedience. Jesus’ description of himself as the true vine in John 15:1 ff. is to be seen against this background, but it differs significantly from the imagery surveyed above. It represents new imagery which differs significantly from OT concepts; it appears to be original with Jesus. The imagery of the vine underscores the importance of fruitfulness in the Christian life and the truth that this results not from human achievement, but from one’s position in Christ. Jesus is not just giving some comforting advice, but portraying to the disciples the difficult path of faithful service. To some degree the figure is similar to the head-body metaphor used by Paul, with Christ as head and believers as members of the body. Both metaphors bring out the vital and necessary connection which exists between Christ and believers.

[15:1]  ²¹ tn Or “the farmer.”

[1:22]  ²² tc Some of the better representatives of the Alexandrian and Western texts have a passive verb here instead of the active ἀποκατήλλαξεν (apokathllaxen, “he has reconciled”): ἀποκατηλλάγητε (apokathllaghte) in (Ì⁴⁶) B, ἀποκατήλλακται [sic] (apokathllaktai) in 33, and ἀποκαταλλαγέντες (apokatallagente") in D* F G. Yet the active verb is strongly supported by א A C D² Ψ 048 075 [0278] 1739 1881 Ï lat sy. Internally, the passive creates an anacoluthon in that it looks back to the accusative ὑμᾶς (Juma", “you”) of v. 21 and leaves the following παραστῆσαι (parasthsai) dangling (“you were reconciled…to present you”). The passive reading is certainly the harder reading. As such, it may well explain the rise of the other readings. At the same time, it is possible that the passive was produced by scribes who wanted some symmetry between the ποτε (pote, “at one time”) of v. 21 and the νυνὶ δέ (nuni de, “but now”) of v. 22: Since a passive periphrastic participle is used in v. 21, there may have a temptation to produce a corresponding passive form in v. 22, handling the ὑμᾶς of v. 21 by way of constructio ad sensum. Since παραστῆσαι occurs ten words later, it may not have been considered in this scribal modification. Further, the Western reading (ἀποκαταλλαγέντες) hardly seems to have arisen from ἀποκατηλλάγητε (contra TCGNT 555). As difficult as this decision is, the preferred reading is the active form because it is superior externally and seems to explain the rise of all forms of the passive readings.