Psalms 51:10

51:10 Create for me a pure heart, O God! ¹ 

Renew a resolute spirit within me! ² 

Psalms 119:9

ב (Bet)

119:9 How can a young person ³  maintain a pure life? ⁴ 

By guarding it according to your instructions! ⁵ 

Proverbs 20:9

20:9 Who can say, ⁶  “I have kept my heart clean; ⁷ 

I am pure ⁸  from my sin”?

Proverbs 30:12

30:12 There is a generation who are pure in their own eyes

and yet are not washed ⁹  from their filthiness. ¹⁰ 

Isaiah 1:16

1:16 ¹¹ Wash! Cleanse yourselves!

Remove your sinful deeds ¹² 

from my sight.

Stop sinning!

Jeremiah 13:27

13:27 People of Jerusalem, ¹³  I have seen your adulterous worship,

your shameless prostitution to, and your lustful pursuit of, other gods. ¹⁴ 

I have seen your disgusting acts of worship ¹⁵ 

on the hills throughout the countryside.

You are doomed to destruction! ¹⁶ 

How long will you continue to be unclean?’”

Ezekiel 18:30-32

18:30 “Therefore I will judge each person according to his conduct, ¹⁷  O house of Israel, declares the sovereign Lord. Repent ¹⁸  and turn from all your wickedness; then it will not be an obstacle leading to iniquity. ¹⁹  18:31 Throw away all your sins you have committed and fashion yourselves a new heart and a new spirit! ²⁰  Why should you die, O house of Israel? 18:32 For I take no delight in the death of anyone, ²¹  declares the sovereign Lord. Repent and live!

Ezekiel 36:25-26

36:25 I will sprinkle you with pure water ²²  and you will be clean from all your impurities. I will purify you from all your idols. 36:26 I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit within you. I will remove the heart of stone ²³  from your body and give you a heart of flesh. ²⁴ 

Matthew 5:8

5:8 “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

Matthew 12:33

Trees and Their Fruit

12:33 “Make a tree good and its fruit will be good, or make a tree bad ²⁵  and its fruit will be bad, for a tree is known by its fruit.

Matthew 23:25-26

23:25 “Woe to you, experts in the law ²⁶  and you Pharisees, hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and the dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. 23:26 Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup, ²⁷  so that the outside may become clean too!

Luke 11:39-40

11:39 But the Lord said to him, “Now you Pharisees clean ²⁸  the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness. ²⁹  11:40 You fools! ³⁰  Didn’t the one who made the outside make the inside as well? ³¹ 

Titus 2:11-14

2:11 For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all people. ³²  2:12 It trains us ³³  to reject godless ways ³⁴  and worldly desires and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, 2:13 as we wait for the happy fulfillment of our hope in the glorious appearing ³⁵  of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. ³⁶  2:14 He ³⁷  gave himself for us to set us free from every kind of lawlessness and to purify for himself a people who are truly his, ³⁸  who are eager to do good. ³⁹ 

James 4:8

4:8 Draw near to God and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and make your hearts pure, you double-minded. ⁴⁰ 

James 4:1

Passions and Pride

4:1 Where do the conflicts and where ⁴¹  do the quarrels among you come from? Is it not from this, ⁴²  from your passions that battle inside you? ⁴³ 

James 1:22

1:22 But be sure you live out the message and do not merely listen to it and so deceive yourselves.

James 2:11

2:11 For he who said, “Do not commit adultery,” ⁴⁴  also said, “Do not murder.” ⁴⁵  Now if you do not commit adultery but do commit murder, you have become a violator of the law.

James 2:1

Prejudice and the Law of Love

2:1 My brothers and sisters, ⁴⁶  do not show prejudice ⁴⁷  if you possess faith ⁴⁸  in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ. ⁴⁹ 

James 1:7

1:7 For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord,

James 1:9

1:9 Now the believer ⁵⁰  of humble means ⁵¹  should take pride ⁵²  in his high position. ⁵³ 

James 3:3

3:3 And if we put bits into the mouths of horses to get them to obey us, then we guide their entire bodies. ⁵⁴ 

[51:10]  ¹ sn The heart is viewed here as the seat of the psalmist’s motives and moral character.

[51:10]  ² tn Heb “and a reliable spirit renew in my inner being.”

[119:9]  ³ tn Heb “young man.” Hebrew wisdom literature often assumes and reflects the male-oriented perspective of ancient Israelite society. The principle of the psalm is certainly applicable to all people, regardless of their gender or age. To facilitate modern application, the gender specific “young man” has been translated with the more neutral “young person.”

[119:9]  ⁴ tn Heb “purify his path.”

[119:9]  ⁵ tn Heb “by keeping according to your word.” Many medieval Hebrew mss as well as the LXX read the plural, “your words.”

[20:9]  ⁶ sn The verse is a rhetorical question; it is affirming that no one can say this because no one is pure and free of sin.

[20:9]  ⁷ tn The verb form זִכִּיתִי (zikkiti) is the Piel perfect of זָכָה (zakhah, “to be clear; to be clean; to be pure”). The verb has the idea of “be clear, justified, acquitted.” In this stem it is causative: “I have made my heart clean” (so NRSV) or “kept my heart pure” (so NIV). This would be claiming that all decisions and motives were faultless.

[20:9]  ⁸ sn The Hebrew verb translated “I am pure” (טָהֵר, taher) is a Levitical term. To claim this purity would be to claim that moral and cultic perfection had been attained and therefore one was acceptable to God in the present condition. Of course, no one can claim this; even if one thought it true, it is impossible to know all that is in the heart as God knows it.

[30:12]  ⁹ tn The verb רָחַץ (rakhats) means “to wash; to wash off; to wash away; to bathe.” It is used of physical washing, ceremonial washings, and hence figuratively of removing sin and guilt through confession (e.g., Isa 1:16). Here the form is the Pual perfect (unless it is a rare old Qal passive, since there is no Piel and no apparent change of meaning from the Qal).

[30:12]  ¹⁰ sn Filthiness often refers to physical uncleanness, but here it refers to moral defilement. Zech 3:3-4 uses it metaphorically as well for the sin of the nation (e.g., Isa 36:12).

[1:16]  ¹¹ sn Having demonstrated the people’s guilt, the Lord calls them to repentance, which will involve concrete action in the socio-economic realm, not mere emotion.

[1:16]  ¹² sn This phrase refers to Israel’s covenant treachery (cf. Deut 28:10; Jer 4:4; 21:12; 23:2, 22; 25:5; 26:3; 44:22; Hos 9:15; Ps 28:4). In general, the noun ַמעַלְלֵיכֶם (ma’alleykhem) can simply be a reference to deeds, whether good or bad. However, Isaiah always uses it with a negative connotation (cf. 3:8, 10).

[13:27]  ¹³ tn Heb “Jerusalem.” This word has been pulled up from the end of the verse to help make the transition. The words “people of” have been supplied in the translation here to ease the difficulty mentioned earlier of sustaining the personification throughout.

[13:27]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “[I have seen] your adulteries, your neighings, and your shameless prostitution.” The meanings of the metaphorical references have been incorporated in the translation for the sake of clarity for readers of all backgrounds.

[13:27]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “your disgusting acts.” This word is almost always used of idolatry or of the idols themselves. See BDB 1055 s.v. שִׁקֻּוּץ and Deut 29:17 and Jer 4:1; 7:30.

[13:27]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “Woe to you!”

[18:30]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “ways.”

[18:30]  ¹⁸ tn The verbs and persons in this verse are plural whereas the individual has been the subject of the chapter.

[18:30]  ¹⁹ tn Or “leading to punishment.”

[18:31]  ²⁰ sn In Ezek 11:19, 36:26 the new heart and new spirit are promised as future blessings.

[18:32]  ²¹ tn Heb “the death of the one dying.”

[36:25]  ²² sn The Lord here uses a metaphor from the realm of ritual purification. For the use of water in ritual cleansing, see Exod 30:19-20; Lev 14:51; Num 19:18; Heb 10:22.

[36:26]  ²³ sn That is, a heart which symbolizes a will that is stubborn and unresponsive (see 1 Sam 25:37). In Rabbinic literature a “stone” was associated with an evil inclination (b. Sukkah 52a).

[36:26]  ²⁴ sn That is, a heart which symbolizes a will that is responsive and obedient to God.

[12:33]  ²⁵ tn Grk “rotten.” The word σαπρός, modifying both “tree” and “fruit,” can also mean “diseased” (L&N 65.28).

[23:25]  ²⁶ tn Or “scribes.” See the note on the phrase “experts in the law” in 2:4.

[23:26]  ²⁷ tc A very difficult textual problem is found here. The most important Alexandrian and Byzantine, as well as significant Western, witnesses (א B C L W 0102 0281 ˹³ 33 Ï lat co) have “and the dish” (καὶ τῆς παροψίδος, kai th" paroyido") after “cup,” while few important witnesses (D Θ Ë¹ 700 and some versional and patristic authorities) omit the phrase. On the one hand, scribes sometimes tended to eliminate redundancy; since “and the dish” is already present in v. 25, it may have been deleted in v. 26 by well-meaning scribes. On the other hand, as B. M. Metzger notes, the singular pronoun αὐτοῦ (autou, “its”) with τὸ ἐκτός (to ekto", “the outside”) in some of the same witnesses that have the longer reading (viz., B* ˹³ al) hints that their archetype lacked the words (TCGNT 50). Further, scribes would be motivated both to add the phrase from v. 25 and to change αὐτοῦ to the plural pronoun αὐτῶν (aujtwn, “their”). Although the external evidence for the shorter reading is not compelling in itself, combined with these two prongs of internal evidence, it is to be slightly preferred.

[11:39]  ²⁸ sn The allusion to washing (clean the outside of the cup) shows Jesus knew what they were thinking and deliberately set up a contrast that charged them with hypocrisy and majoring on minors.

[11:39]  ²⁹ tn Or “and evil.”

[11:40]  ³⁰ sn You fools is a rebuke which in the OT refers to someone who is blind to God (Ps 14:1, 53:1; 92:6; Prov 6:12).

[11:40]  ³¹ tn The question includes a Greek particle, οὐ (ou), that expects a positive reply. God, the maker of both, is concerned for what is both inside and outside.

[2:11]  ³² tn Grk “all men”; but ἀνθρώποις (anqrwpois) is generic here, referring to both men and women.

[2:12]  ³³ tn Grk “training us” (as a continuation of the previous clause). Because of the length and complexity of the Greek sentence, a new sentence was started at the beginning of v. 12 by translating the participle παιδεύουσα (paideuousa) as a finite verb and supplying the pronoun “it” as subject.

[2:12]  ³⁴ tn Grk “ungodliness.”

[2:13]  ³⁵ tn Grk “the blessed hope and glorious appearing.”

[2:13]  ³⁶ tn The terms “God and Savior” both refer to the same person, Jesus Christ. This is one of the clearest statements in the NT concerning the deity of Christ. The construction in Greek is known as the Granville Sharp rule, named after the English philanthropist-linguist who first clearly articulated the rule in 1798. Sharp pointed out that in the construction article-noun-καί-noun (where καί [kai] = “and”), when two nouns are singular, personal, and common (i.e., not proper names), they always had the same referent. Illustrations such as “the friend and brother,” “the God and Father,” etc. abound in the NT to prove Sharp’s point. The only issue is whether terms such as “God” and “Savior” could be considered common nouns as opposed to proper names. Sharp and others who followed (such as T. F. Middleton in his masterful The Doctrine of the Greek Article) demonstrated that a proper name in Greek was one that could not be pluralized. Since both “God” (θεός, qeos) and “savior” (σωτήρ, swthr) were occasionally found in the plural, they did not constitute proper names, and hence, do fit Sharp’s rule. Although there have been 200 years of attempts to dislodge Sharp’s rule, all attempts have been futile. Sharp’s rule stands vindicated after all the dust has settled. For more information on Sharp’s rule see ExSyn 270-78, esp. 276. See also 2 Pet 1:1 and Jude 4.

[2:14]  ³⁷ tn Grk “who” (as a continuation of the previous clause).

[2:14]  ³⁸ tn Or “a people who are his very own.”

[2:14]  ³⁹ tn Grk “for good works.”

[4:8]  ⁴⁰ tn Or “two-minded” (the same description used in 1:8).

[4:1]  ⁴¹ tn The word “where” is repeated in Greek for emphasis.

[4:1]  ⁴² tn Grk “from here.”

[4:1]  ⁴³ tn Grk “in your members [i.e., parts of the body].”

[2:11]  ⁴⁴ sn A quotation from Exod 20:14 and Deut 5:18.

[2:11]  ⁴⁵ sn A quotation from Exod 20:13 and Deut 5:17.

[2:1]  ⁴⁶ tn Grk “brothers.” See note on the phrase “brothers and sisters” in 1:2.

[2:1]  ⁴⁷ tn Or “partiality.”

[2:1]  ⁴⁸ tn Grk “do not have faith with personal prejudice,” with emphasis on the last phrase.

[2:1]  ⁴⁹ tn Grk “our Lord Jesus Christ of glory.” Here δόξης (doxhs) has been translated as an attributive genitive.

[1:9]  ⁵⁰ tn Grk “brother.” Here the term “brother” means “fellow believer” or “fellow Christian” (cf. TEV, NLT “Christians”; CEV “God’s people”). The term broadly connotes familial relationships within the family of God (cf. BDAG 18 s.v. ἀδελφός 2.a).

[1:9]  ⁵¹ tn Grk “the lowly brother,” but “lowly/humble” is clarified in context by the contrast with “wealthy” in v. 10.

[1:9]  ⁵² tn Grk “let him boast.”

[1:9]  ⁵³ tn Grk “his height,” “his exaltation.”

[3:3]  ⁵⁴ tn Grk “their entire body.”