Psalms 1:4

1:4 Not so with the wicked!

Instead ¹  they are like wind-driven chaff. ² 

Psalms 21:9-10

21:9 You burn them up like a fiery furnace ³  when you appear; ⁴ 

the Lord angrily devours them; ⁵ 

the fire consumes them.

21:10 You destroy their offspring ⁶  from the earth,

their descendants ⁷  from among the human race. ⁸ 

Mark 9:43-49

9:43 If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off! It is better for you to enter into life crippled than to have ⁹  two hands and go into hell, ¹⁰  to the unquenchable fire. 9:44 [[EMPTY]] ¹¹  9:45 If your foot causes you to sin, cut it off! It is better to enter life lame than to have ¹²  two feet and be thrown into hell. 9:46 [[EMPTY]] ¹³  9:47 If your eye causes you to sin, tear it out! ¹⁴  It is better to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye than to have ¹⁵  two eyes and be thrown into hell, 9:48 where their worm never dies and the fire is never quenched. 9:49 Everyone will be salted with fire. ¹⁶ 

[1:4]  ¹ tn Here the Hebrew expression כִּי־אִם (ki-’im, “instead,” cf. v. 2) introduces a contrast between the prosperity of the godly depicted in v. 3 and the destiny of the wicked described in v. 4.

[1:4]  ² tn Heb “[they are] like the chaff which [the] wind blows about.” The Hebrew imperfect verbal form draws attention to the typical nature of the action described.

[21:9]  ³ tn Heb “you make them like a furnace of fire.” Although many modern translations retain the literal Hebrew, the statement is elliptical. The point is not that he makes them like a furnace, but like an object burned in a furnace (cf. NEB, “at your coming you shall plunge them into a fiery furnace”).

[21:9]  ⁴ tn Heb “at the time of your face.” The “face” of the king here refers to his angry presence. See Lam 4:16.

[21:9]  ⁵ tn Heb “the Lord, in his anger he swallows them, and fire devours them.” Some take “the Lord” as a vocative, in which case he is addressed in vv. 8-9a. But this makes the use of the third person in v. 9b rather awkward, though the king could be the subject (see vv. 1-7).

[21:10]  ⁶ tn Heb “fruit.” The next line makes it clear that offspring is in view.

[21:10]  ⁷ tn Heb “seed.”

[21:10]  ⁸ tn Heb “sons of man.”

[9:43]  ⁹ tn Grk “than having.”

[9:43]  ¹⁰ sn The word translated hell is “Gehenna” (γέεννα, geenna), a Greek transliteration of the Hebrew words ge hinnom (“Valley of Hinnom”). This was the valley along the south side of Jerusalem. In OT times it was used for human sacrifices to the pagan god Molech (cf. Jer 7:31; 19:5-6; 32:35), and it came to be used as a place where human excrement and rubbish were disposed of and burned. In the intertestamental period, it came to be used symbolically as the place of divine punishment (cf. 1 En. 27:2, 90:26; 4 Ezra 7:36). This Greek term also occurs in vv. 45, 47.

[9:44]  ¹¹ tc Most later mss have 9:44 here and 9:46 after v. 45: “where their worm never dies and the fire is never quenched” (identical with v. 48). Verses 44 and 46 are present in A D Θ Ë¹³ Ï lat sy^p,h, but lacking in important Alexandrian mss and several others (א B C L W Δ Ψ 0274 ˹ 28 565 892 2427 pc co). This appears to be a scribal addition from v. 48 and is almost certainly not an original part of the Greek text of Mark. The present translation follows NA²⁷ in omitting the verse number, a procedure also followed by a number of other modern translations.

[9:45]  ¹² tn Grk “than having.”

[9:46]  ¹³ tc See tc note at the end of v. 43.

[9:47]  ¹⁴ tn Grk “throw it out.”

[9:47]  ¹⁵ tn Grk “than having.”

[9:49]  ¹⁶ tc The earliest mss ([א] B L [W] Δ 0274 Ë^1,13 28* 565 700 pc sy^s sa) have the reading adopted by the translation. Codex Bezae (D) and several Itala read “Every sacrifice will be salted with salt.” The majority of other mss (A C Θ Ψ [2427] Ï lat sy^p,h) have both readings, “Everyone will be salted with fire, and every sacrifice will be salted with salt.” An early scribe may have written the LXX text of Lev 2:13 (“Every sacrifice offering of yours shall be salted with salt”) in the margin of his ms. At a later stage, copyists would either replace the text with this marginal note or add the note to the text. The longer reading thus seems to be the result of the conflation of the Alexandrian reading “salted with fire” and the Western reading “salted with salt.” The reading adopted by the text enjoys the best support and explains the other readings in the ms tradition.