Psalms 18:41

18:41 They cry out, but there is no one to help them; ¹ 

they cry out to the Lord, ²  but he does not answer them.

Proverbs 1:28

1:28 Then they will call to me, but I will not answer;

they will diligently seek ³  me, but they will not find me.

Proverbs 28:9

28:9 The one who turns away his ear ⁴  from hearing the law,

even his prayer ⁵  is an abomination. ⁶ 

Isaiah 1:15

1:15 When you spread out your hands in prayer,

I look the other way; ⁷ 

when you offer your many prayers,

I do not listen,

because your hands are covered with blood. ⁸ 

Jeremiah 2:27-28

2:27 They say to a wooden idol, ⁹  ‘You are my father.’

They say to a stone image, ‘You gave birth to me.’ ¹⁰ 

Yes, they have turned away from me instead of turning to me. ¹¹ 

Yet when they are in trouble, they say, ‘Come and save us!’

2:28 But where are the gods you made for yourselves?

Let them save you when you are in trouble.

The sad fact is that ¹²  you have as many gods

as you have towns, Judah.

Ezekiel 8:18

8:18 Therefore I will act with fury! My eye will not pity them nor will I spare ¹³  them. When they have shouted in my ears, I will not listen to them.”

Zechariah 7:13

7:13 “‘It then came about that just as I ¹⁴  cried out, but they would not obey, so they will cry out, but I will not listen,’ the Lord Lord who rules over all had said.

Matthew 7:22

7:22 On that day, many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, didn’t we prophesy in your name, and in your name cast out demons and do ¹⁵  many powerful deeds?’

Luke 13:25

13:25 Once ¹⁶  the head of the house ¹⁷  gets up ¹⁸  and shuts the door, then you will stand outside and start to knock on the door and beg him, ‘Lord, ¹⁹  let us in!’ ²⁰  But he will answer you, ²¹  ‘I don’t know where you come from.’ ²² 

John 9:31

9:31 We know that God doesn’t listen to ²³  sinners, but if anyone is devout ²⁴  and does his will, God ²⁵  listens to ²⁶  him. ²⁷ 

James 2:13

2:13 For judgment is merciless for the one who has shown no mercy. But mercy triumphs over ²⁸  judgment.

[18:41]  ¹ tn Heb “but there is no deliverer.”

[18:41]  ² tn Heb “to the Lord.” The words “they cry out” are supplied in the translation because they are understood by ellipsis (see the preceding line).

[1:28]  ³ tn Heb “look to.” The verb שָׁחַר (shakhar, “to look”) is used figuratively of intensely looking (=seeking) for deliverance out of trouble (W. L. Holladay, Concise Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon, 366); cf. NLT “anxiously search for.” It is used elsewhere in parallelism with בָּקַשׁ (baqash, “to seek rescue”; Hos 5:15). It does not mean “to seek early” (cf. KJV) as is popularly taught due to etymological connections with the noun שַׁחַר (shakhar, “dawn”; so BDB 1007 s.v. שָׁחַר).

[28:9]  ⁴ sn The expression “turn away the ear from hearing” uses a metonymy to mean that this individual will not listen – it indicates a deliberate refusal to follow the instruction of the law.

[28:9]  ⁵ sn It is hard to imagine how someone who willfully refuses to obey the law of God would pray according to the will of God. Such a person is more apt to pray for some physical thing or make demands on God. (Of course a prayer of repentance would be an exception and would not be an abomination to the Lord.)

[28:9]  ⁶ sn C. H. Toy says, “If a man, on his part, is deaf to instruction, then God, on his part, is deaf to prayer” (Proverbs [ICC], 499). And W. McKane observes that one who fails to attend to God’s law is a wicked person, even if he is a man of prayer (Proverbs [OTL], 623).

[1:15]  ⁷ tn Heb “I close my eyes from you.”

[1:15]  ⁸ sn This does not just refer to the blood of sacrificial animals, but also the blood, as it were, of their innocent victims. By depriving the poor and destitute of proper legal recourse and adequate access to the economic system, the oppressors have, for all intents and purposes, “killed” their victims.

[2:27]  ⁹ tn Heb “wood…stone…”

[2:27]  ¹⁰ sn The reference to wood and stone is, of course, a pejorative reference to idols made by human hands. See the next verse where reference is made to “the gods you have made.”

[2:27]  ¹¹ tn Heb “they have turned [their] backs to me, not [their] faces.”

[2:28]  ¹² tn This is an attempt to render the Hebrew particle כִּי (ki, “for, indeed”) contextually.

[8:18]  ¹³ tn The meaning of the Hebrew term is primarily emotional: “to pity,” which in context implies an action, as in being moved by pity in order to spare them from the horror of their punishment.

[7:13]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “he.” Since the third person pronoun refers to the Lord, it has been translated as a first person pronoun (“I”) to accommodate English style, which typically does not exhibit switches between persons of pronouns in the same immediate context as Hebrew does.

[7:22]  ¹⁵ tn Grk “and in your name do.” This phrase was not repeated here in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[13:25]  ¹⁶ tn The syntactical relationship between vv. 24-25 is disputed. The question turns on whether v. 25 is connected to v. 24 or not. A lack of a clear connective makes an independent idea more likely. However, one must then determine what the beginning of the sentence connects to. Though it makes for slightly awkward English, the translation has opted to connect it to “he will answer” so that this functions, in effect, as an apodosis. One could end the sentence after “us” and begin a new sentence with “He will answer” to make simpler sentences, although the connection between the two sentences is thereby less clear. The point of the passage, however, is clear. Once the door is shut, because one failed to come in through the narrow way, it is closed permanently. The moral: Do not be too late in deciding to respond.

[13:25]  ¹⁷ tn Or “the master of the household.”

[13:25]  ¹⁸ tn Or “rises,” or “stands up.”

[13:25]  ¹⁹ tn Or “Sir.”

[13:25]  ²⁰ tn Grk “Open to us.”

[13:25]  ²¹ tn Grk “and answering, he will say to you.” This is redundant in contemporary English and has been simplified to “he will answer you.”

[13:25]  ²² sn For the imagery behind the statement “I do not know where you come from,” see Ps 138:6; Isa 63:16; Jer 1:5; Hos 5:3.

[9:31]  ²³ tn Grk “God does not hear.”

[9:31]  ²⁴ tn Or “godly.”

[9:31]  ²⁵ tn Grk “he”; the referent (God) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[9:31]  ²⁶ tn Or “hears.”

[9:31]  ²⁷ tn Grk “this one.”

[2:13]  ²⁸ tn Grk “boasts against, exults over,” in victory.