Psalms 10:11

10:11 He says to himself, ¹ 

“God overlooks it;

he does not pay attention;

he never notices.” ² 

Psalms 11:1

Psalm 11 ³ 

For the music director; by David.

11:1 In the Lord I have taken shelter. ⁴ 

How can you say to me, ⁵ 

“Flee to a mountain like a bird! ⁶ 

Psalms 14:1

Psalm 14 ⁷ 

For the music director; by David.

14:1 Fools say to themselves, ⁸  “There is no God.” ⁹ 

They sin and commit evil deeds; ¹⁰ 

none of them does what is right. ¹¹ 

Psalms 50:21

50:21 When you did these things, I was silent, ¹² 

so you thought I was exactly like you. ¹³ 

But now I will condemn ¹⁴  you

and state my case against you! ¹⁵ 

Isaiah 30:10-11

30:10 They ¹⁶  say to the visionaries, “See no more visions!”

and to the seers, “Don’t relate messages to us about what is right! ¹⁷ 

Tell us nice things,

relate deceptive messages. ¹⁸ 

30:11 Turn aside from the way,

stray off the path. ¹⁹ 

Remove from our presence the Holy One of Israel.” ²⁰ 

Hosea 7:3

Political Intrigue and Conspiracy in the Palace

7:3 The royal advisers delight the king with their evil schemes,

the princes make him glad with their lies.

Amos 7:13-17

7:13 Don’t prophesy at Bethel ²¹  any longer, for a royal temple and palace are here!” ²² 

7:14 Amos replied ²³  to Amaziah, “I was not a prophet by profession. ²⁴  No, ²⁵  I was a herdsman who also took care of ²⁶  sycamore fig trees. ²⁷  7:15 Then the Lord took me from tending ²⁸  flocks and gave me this commission, ²⁹  ‘Go! Prophesy to my people Israel!’ 7:16 So now listen to the Lord’s message! You say, ‘Don’t prophesy against Israel! Don’t preach ³⁰  against the family of Isaac!’

7:17 “Therefore this is what the Lord says:

‘Your wife will become a prostitute in the streets ³¹ 

and your sons and daughters will die violently. ³² 

Your land will be given to others ³³ 

and you will die in a foreign ³⁴  land.

Israel will certainly be carried into exile ³⁵  away from its land.’”

Micah 2:6-7

2:6 ‘Don’t preach with such impassioned rhetoric,’ they say excitedly. ³⁶ 

‘These prophets should not preach of such things;

we will not be overtaken by humiliation.’ ³⁷ 

2:7 Does the family ³⁸  of Jacob say, ³⁹ 

‘The Lord’s patience ⁴⁰  can’t be exhausted –

he would never do such things’? ⁴¹ 

To be sure, my commands bring a reward

for those who obey them, ⁴² 

Micah 2:11

2:11 If a lying windbag should come and say, ⁴³ 

‘I’ll promise you blessings of wine and beer,’ ⁴⁴ 

he would be just the right preacher for these people! ⁴⁵ 

Micah 2:1

Land Robbers Will Lose their Land

2:1 Those who devise sinful plans are as good as dead, ⁴⁶ 

those who dream about doing evil as they lie in bed. ⁴⁷ 

As soon as morning dawns they carry out their plans, ⁴⁸ 

because they have the power to do so.

Colossians 2:14-16

2:14 He has destroyed ⁴⁹  what was against us, a certificate of indebtedness ⁵⁰  expressed in decrees opposed to us. He has taken it away by nailing it to the cross. 2:15 Disarming ⁵¹  the rulers and authorities, he has made a public disgrace of them, triumphing over them by the cross. ⁵² 

2:16 Therefore do not let anyone judge you with respect to food or drink, or in the matter of a feast, new moon, or Sabbath days –

[10:11]  ¹ tn Heb “he says in his heart.” See v. 6.

[10:11]  ² tn Heb “God forgets, he hides his face, he never sees.”

[11:1]  ³ sn Psalm 11. The psalmist rejects the advice to flee from his dangerous enemies. Instead he affirms his confidence in God’s just character and calls down judgment on evildoers.

[11:1]  ⁴ tn The Hebrew perfect verbal form probably refers here to a completed action with continuing results.

[11:1]  ⁵ tn The pronominal suffix attached to נֶפֶשׁ (nefesh) is equivalent to a personal pronoun. See Ps 6:3.

[11:1]  ⁶ tc The MT is corrupt here. The Kethib (consonantal text) reads: “flee [masculine plural!] to your [masculine plural!] mountain, bird.” The Qere (marginal reading) has “flee” in a feminine singular form, agreeing grammatically with the addressee, the feminine noun “bird.” Rather than being a second masculine plural pronominal suffix, the ending כֶם- (-khem) attached to “mountain” is better interpreted as a second feminine singular pronominal suffix followed by an enclitic mem (ם). “Bird” may be taken as vocative (“O bird”) or as an adverbial accusative of manner (“like a bird”). Either way, the psalmist’s advisers compare him to a helpless bird whose only option in the face of danger is to fly away to an inaccessible place.

[14:1]  ⁷ sn Psalm 14. The psalmist observes that the human race is morally corrupt. Evildoers oppress God’s people, but the psalmist is confident of God’s protection and anticipates a day when God will vindicate Israel.

[14:1]  ⁸ tn Heb “a fool says in his heart.” The singular is used here in a collective or representative sense; the typical fool is envisioned.

[14:1]  ⁹ sn “There is no God.” The statement is probably not a philosophical assertion that God does not exist, but rather a confident affirmation that God is unconcerned about how men live morally and ethically (see Ps 10:4, 11).

[14:1]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “they act corruptly, they make a deed evil.” The verbs describe the typical behavior of the wicked. The subject of the plural verbs is “sons of man” (v. 2). The entire human race is characterized by sinful behavior. This practical atheism – living as if there is no God who will hold them accountable for their actions – makes them fools, for one of the earmarks of folly is to fail to anticipate the long range consequences of one’s behavior.

[14:1]  ¹¹ tn Heb “there is none that does good.”

[50:21]  ¹² tn Heb “these things you did and I was silent.” Some interpret the second clause (“and I was silent”) as a rhetorical question expecting a negative answer, “[When you do these things], should I keep silent?” (cf. NEB). See GKC 335 §112.cc.

[50:21]  ¹³ tn The Hebrew infinitive construct (הֱיוֹת, heyot) appears to function like the infinitive absolute here, adding emphasis to the following finite verbal form (אֶהְיֶה, ’ehyeh). See GKC 339-40 §113.a. Some prefer to emend הֱיוֹת (heyot) to the infinitive absolute form הָיוֹ (hayo).

[50:21]  ¹⁴ tn Or “rebuke” (see v. 8).

[50:21]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “and I will set in order [my case against you] to your eyes.” The cohortative form expresses the Lord’s resolve to accuse and judge the wicked.

[30:10]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “who” (so NASB, NRSV). A new sentence was started here in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[30:10]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “Do not see for us right things.”

[30:10]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “Tell us smooth things, see deceptive things.”

[30:11]  ¹⁹ sn The imagery refers to the way or path of truth, as revealed by God to the prophet.

[30:11]  ²⁰ sn See the note on the phrase “the Holy One of Israel” in 1:4.

[7:13]  ²¹ map For location see Map4 G4; Map5 C1; Map6 E3; Map7 D1; Map8 G3.

[7:13]  ²² tn Heb “for it is a temple of a king and it is a royal house.” It is possible that the phrase “royal house” refers to a temple rather than a palace. See S. M. Paul, Amos (Hermeneia), 243.

[7:14]  ²³ tn Heb “replied and said.” The phrase “and said” is pleonastic (redundant) and has not been included in the translation.

[7:14]  ²⁴ tn Heb “I was not a prophet nor was I the son of a prophet.” The phrase “son of a prophet” refers to one who was trained in a prophetic guild. Since there is no equative verb present in the Hebrew text, another option is to translate with the present tense, “I am not a prophet by profession.” In this case Amos, though now carrying out a prophetic ministry (v. 15), denies any official or professional prophetic status. Modern English versions are divided about whether to understand the past (JB, NIV, NKJV) or present tense (NASB, NEB, NRSV, NJPS) here.

[7:14]  ²⁵ tn Heb “for.”

[7:14]  ²⁶ tn Heb “gashed”; or “pierced.”

[7:14]  ²⁷ sn It is possible that herdsmen agreed to care for sycamore fig trees in exchange for grazing rights. See P. King, Amos, Hosea, Micah, 116-17. Since these trees do not grow around Tekoa but rather in the lowlands, another option is that Amos owned other property outside his hometown. In this case, this verse demonstrates his relative wealth and is his response to Amaziah; he did not depend on prophecy as a profession (v. 13).

[7:15]  ²⁸ tn Heb “from [following] after.”

[7:15]  ²⁹ tn Heb “and the Lord said to me.”

[7:16]  ³⁰ tn The verb, which literally means “to drip,” appears to be a synonym of “to prophesy,” but it might carry a derogatory tone here, perhaps alluding to the impassioned, frenzied way in which prophets sometimes delivered their messages. If so, one could translate, “to drivel; to foam at the mouth” (see HALOT 694 s.v. נטף).

[7:17]  ³¹ tn Heb “in the city,” that is, “in public.”

[7:17]  ³² tn Heb “will fall by the sword.”

[7:17]  ³³ tn Heb “will be divided up with a [surveyor’s] measuring line.”

[7:17]  ³⁴ tn Heb “[an] unclean”; or “[an] impure.” This fate would be especially humiliating for a priest, who was to distinguish between the ritually clean and unclean (see Lev 10:10).

[7:17]  ³⁵ tn See the note on the word “exile” in 5:5.

[2:6]  ³⁶ tn Heb “‘Do not foam at the mouth,’ they foam at the mouth.” The verb נָטַף (nataf) means “to drip.” When used of speech it probably has the nuance “to drivel, to foam at the mouth” (HALOT 694 s.v. נטף). The sinful people tell the Lord’s prophets not to “foam at the mouth,” which probably refers in a derogatory way to their impassioned style of delivery. But the Lord (who is probably still speaking here, see v. 3) sarcastically refers to their impassioned exhortation as “foaming at the mouth.”

[2:6]  ³⁷ tc If one follows the MT as it stands, it would appear that the Lord here condemns the people for their “foaming at the mouth” and then announces that judgment is inevitable. The present translation assumes that this is a continuation of the quotation of what the people say. In this case the subject of “foam at the mouth” is the Lord’s prophets. In the second line יִסַּג (yissag, a Niphal imperfect from סוּג, sug, “to remove”) is emended to יַסִּגֵנוּ (yassigenu; a Hiphil imperfect from נָסַג/נָשַׂג, nasag/nasag, “to reach; to overtake”).

[2:7]  ³⁸ tn Heb “house” (so many English versions); CEV “descendants.’

[2:7]  ³⁹ tc The MT has אָמוּר (’amur), an otherwise unattested passive participle, which is better emended to אָמוֹר (’amor), an infinitive absolute functioning as a finite verb (see BDB 55 s.v. אָמַר).

[2:7]  ⁴⁰ tn The Hebrew word רוּחַ (ruach) often means “Spirit” when used of the Lord, but here it seems to have an abstract sense, “patience.” See BDB 925 s.v. 3.d.

[2:7]  ⁴¹ tn Heb “Has the patience of the Lord run short? Or are these his deeds?” The rhetorical questions expect the answer, “No, of course not.” The people contest the prophet’s claims that the Lord’s judgment is falling on the nation.

[2:7]  ⁴² tn Heb “Do not my words accomplish good for the one who walks uprightly?” The rhetorical question expects the answer, “Of course they do!” The Lord begins his response to the claim of the house of Jacob that they are immune to judgment (see v. 7a). He points out that the godly are indeed rewarded, but then he goes on to show that those in the house of Jacob are not godly and can expect divine judgment, not blessing (vv. 8-11). Some emend “my words” to “his words.” In this case, v. 7b is a continuation of the immediately preceding quotation. The people, thinking they are godly, confidently ask, “Do not his [God’s] words accomplish good for the one who walks uprightly?”

[2:11]  ⁴³ tn Heb “if a man, coming [as] wind and falsehood, should lie”; NASB “walking after wind and falsehood”; NIV “a liar and a deceiver.”

[2:11]  ⁴⁴ tn Heb “I will foam at the mouth concerning wine and beer.”

[2:11]  ⁴⁵ tn Heb “he would be the foamer at the mouth for this people.”

[2:1]  ⁴⁶ tn Heb “Woe to those who plan sin.” The Hebrew term הוֹי (hoy, “woe”; “ah”) was a cry used in mourning the dead.

[2:1]  ⁴⁷ tn Heb “those who do evil upon their beds.”

[2:1]  ⁴⁸ tn Heb “at the light of morning they do it.”

[2:14]  ⁴⁹ tn The participle ἐξαλείψας (exaleiyas) is a temporal adverbial participle of contemporaneous time related to the previous verb συνεζωοποίησεν (sunezwopoihsen), but has been translated as a finite verb because of the complexity of the Greek sentence and the tendency of contemporary English to use shorter sentences. For the meaning “destroy” see BDAG 344-45 s.v. ἐξαλείφω 2.

[2:14]  ⁵⁰ tn On the translation of χειρόγραφον (ceirografon), see BDAG 1083 s.v. which refers to it as “a certificate of indebtedness.”

[2:15]  ⁵¹ tn See BDAG 100 s.v. ἀπεκδύομαι 2.

[2:15]  ⁵² tn The antecedent of the Greek pronoun αὐτῷ (autw) could either be “Christ” or the “cross.” There are several reasons for choosing “the cross” as the antecedent for αὐτῷ in verse 15: (1) The nearest antecedent is τῷ σταυρῷ (tw staurw) in v. 14; (2) the idea of ἐδειγμάτισεν ἐν παρρησία (edeigmatisen en parrhsia, “made a public disgrace”) seems to be more in keeping with the idea of the cross; (3) a reference to Christ seems to miss the irony involved in the idea of triumph – the whole point is that where one would expect defeat, there came the victory; (4) if Christ is the subject of the participles in v. 15 then almost certainly the cross is the referent for αὐτῷ. Thus the best solution is to see αὐτῷ as a reference to the cross and the preposition ἐν (en) indicating “means” (i.e., by means of the cross) or possibly (though less likely) location (on the cross).