Psalms 81:11-13

81:11 But my people did not obey me; ¹ 

Israel did not submit to me. ² 

81:12 I gave them over to their stubborn desires; ³ 

they did what seemed right to them. ⁴ 

81:13 If only my people would obey me! ⁵ 

If only Israel would keep my commands! ⁶ 

Isaiah 1:2-5

Obedience, not Sacrifice

1:2 Listen, O heavens,

pay attention, O earth! ⁷ 

For the Lord speaks:

“I raised children, ⁸  I brought them up, ⁹ 

but ¹⁰  they have rebelled ¹¹  against me!

1:3 An ox recognizes its owner,

a donkey recognizes where its owner puts its food; ¹² 

but Israel does not recognize me, ¹³ 

my people do not understand.”

1:4 ¹⁴ The sinful nation is as good as dead, ¹⁵ 

the people weighed down by evil deeds.

They are offspring who do wrong,

children ¹⁶  who do wicked things.

They have abandoned the Lord,

and rejected the Holy One of Israel. ¹⁷ 

They are alienated from him. ¹⁸ 

1:5 ¹⁹ Why do you insist on being battered?

Why do you continue to rebel? ²⁰ 

Your head has a massive wound, ²¹ 

your whole body is weak. ²² 

Micah 6:1-5

The Lord Demands Justice, not Ritual

6:1 Listen to what the Lord says:

“Get up! Defend yourself ²³  before the mountains! ²⁴ 

Present your case before the hills!” ²⁵ 

6:2 Hear the Lord’s accusation, you mountains,

you enduring foundations of the earth!

For the Lord has a case against his people;

he has a dispute with Israel! ²⁶ 

6:3 “My people, how have I wronged you? ²⁷ 

How have I wearied you? Answer me!

6:4 In fact, I brought you up from the land of Egypt,

I delivered you from that place of slavery.

I sent Moses, Aaron, and Miriam to lead you. ²⁸ 

6:5 My people, recall how King Balak of Moab planned to harm you, ²⁹ 

how Balaam son of Beor responded to him.

Recall how you journeyed from Shittim to Gilgal,

so you might acknowledge that the Lord has treated you fairly.” ³⁰ 

Mark 9:19

9:19 He answered them, ³¹  “You ³²  unbelieving ³³  generation! How much longer ³⁴  must I be with you? How much longer must I endure ³⁵  you? ³⁶  Bring him to me.”

Mark 16:14

16:14 Then he appeared to the eleven themselves, while they were eating, and he rebuked them for their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they did not believe those who had seen him resurrected.

James 1:5

1:5 But if anyone is deficient in wisdom, he should ask God, who gives to all generously and without reprimand, and it will be given to him.

[81:11]  ¹ tn Heb “did not listen to my voice.”

[81:11]  ² tn The Hebrew expression אָבָה לִי (’avah liy) means “submit to me” (see Deut 13:8).

[81:12]  ³ tn Heb “and I sent him away in the stubbornness of their heart.”

[81:12]  ⁴ tn Heb “they walked in their counsel.” The prefixed verbal form is either preterite (“walked”) or a customary imperfect (“were walking”).

[81:13]  ⁵ tn Heb “if only my people were listening to me.” The Hebrew particle לוּ (lu, “if not”) introduces a purely hypothetical or contrary to fact condition (see 2 Sam 18:12).

[81:13]  ⁶ tn Heb “[and if only] Israel would walk in my ways.”

[1:2]  ⁷ sn The personified heavens and earth are summoned to God’s courtroom as witnesses against God’s covenant people. Long before this Moses warned the people that the heavens and earth would be watching their actions (see Deut 4:26; 30:19; 31:28; 32:1).

[1:2]  ⁸ tn Or “sons” (NAB, NASB).

[1:2]  ⁹ sn The normal word pair for giving birth to and raising children is יָלַד (yalad, “to give birth to”) and גָּדַל (gadal, “to grow, raise”). The pair גָּדַל and רוּם (rum, “to raise up”) probably occur here to highlight the fact that Yahweh made something important of Israel (cf. R. Mosis, TDOT 2:403).

[1:2]  ¹⁰ sn Against the backdrop of Yahweh’s care for his chosen people, Israel’s rebellion represents abhorrent treachery. The conjunction prefixed to a nonverbal element highlights the sad contrast between Yahweh’s compassionate care for His people and Israel’s thankless rebellion.

[1:2]  ¹¹ sn To rebel carries the idea of “covenant treachery.” Although an act of פֶּשַׁע (pesha’, “rebellion”) often signifies a breach of the law, the legal offense also represents a violation of an existing covenantal relationship (E. Carpenter and M. Grisanti, NIDOTTE 3:707).

[1:3]  ¹² tn Heb “and the donkey the feeding trough of its owner.” The verb in the first line does double duty in the parallelism.

[1:3]  ¹³ tn Although both verbs have no object, the parallelism suggests that Israel fails to recognize the Lord as the one who provides for their needs. In both clauses, the placement of “Israel” and “my people” at the head of the clause focuses the reader’s attention on the rebellious nation (C. van der Merwe, J. Naudé, J. Kroeze, A Biblical Hebrew Reference Grammar, 346-47).

[1:4]  ¹⁴ sn Having summoned the witnesses and announced the Lord’s accusation against Israel, Isaiah mourns the nation’s impending doom. The third person references to the Lord in the second half of the verse suggest that the quotation from the Lord (cf. vv. 2-3) has concluded.

[1:4]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “Woe [to the] sinful nation.” The Hebrew term הוֹי, (hoy, “woe, ah”) was used in funeral laments (see 1 Kgs 13:30; Jer 22:18; 34:5) and carries the connotation of death. In highly dramatic fashion the prophet acts out Israel’s funeral in advance, emphasizing that their demise is inevitable if they do not repent soon.

[1:4]  ¹⁶ tn Or “sons” (NASB). The prophet contrasts four terms of privilege – nation, people, offspring, children – with four terms that depict Israel’s sinful condition in Isaiah’s day – sinful, evil, wrong, wicked (see J. A. Motyer, The Prophecy of Isaiah, 43).

[1:4]  ¹⁷ sn Holy One of Israel is one of Isaiah’s favorite divine titles for God. It pictures the Lord as the sovereign king who rules over his covenant people and exercises moral authority over them.

[1:4]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “they are estranged backward.” The LXX omits this statement, which presents syntactical problems and seems to be outside the synonymous parallelistic structure of the verse.

[1:5]  ¹⁹ sn In vv. 5-9 Isaiah addresses the battered nation (5-8) and speaks as their representative (9).

[1:5]  ²⁰ tn Heb “Why are you still beaten? [Why] do you continue rebellion?” The rhetorical questions express the prophet’s disbelief over Israel’s apparent masochism and obsession with sin. The interrogative construction in the first line does double duty in the parallelism. H. Wildberger (Isaiah, 1:18) offers another alternative by translating the two statements with one question: “Why do you still wish to be struck that you persist in revolt?”

[1:5]  ²¹ tn Heb “all the head is ill”; NRSV “the whole head is sick”; CEV “Your head is badly bruised.”

[1:5]  ²² tn Heb “and all the heart is faint.” The “heart” here stands for bodily strength and energy, as suggested by the context and usage elsewhere (see Jer 8:18; Lam 1:22).

[6:1]  ²³ tn Or “plead your case” (NASB, NIV, NRSV); NAB “present your plea”; NLT “state your case.”

[6:1]  ²⁴ sn As in some ancient Near Eastern treaties, the mountains are personified as legal witnesses that will settle the dispute between God and Israel.

[6:1]  ²⁵ tn Heb “let the hills hear your voice.”

[6:2]  ²⁶ tn This verse briefly interrupts the Lord’s statement (see vv. 1, 3) as the prophet summons the mountains as witnesses. Because of this v. 2 has been placed in parentheses in the translation.

[6:3]  ²⁷ tn Heb “My people, what have I done to you?”

[6:4]  ²⁸ tn Heb “before you.”

[6:5]  ²⁹ tn Heb “remember what Balak…planned.”

[6:5]  ³⁰ tn Heb “From Shittim to Gilgal, in order to know the just acts of the Lord.” Something appears to be missing at the beginning of the line. The present translation supplies the words, “Recall how you went.” This apparently refers to how Israel crossed the Jordan River (see Josh 3:1; 4:19-24).

[9:19]  ³¹ tn Grk “And answering, he said to them.” The participle ἀποκριθείς (apokriqeis) is redundant, but the phrasing of the sentence was modified slightly to make it clearer in English.

[9:19]  ³² tn Grk “O.” The marker of direct address, ὦ (w), is functionally equivalent to a vocative and is represented in the translation by “you.”

[9:19]  ³³ tn Or “faithless.”

[9:19]  ³⁴ tn Grk “how long.”

[9:19]  ³⁵ tn Or “put up with.” See Num 11:12; Isa 46:4.

[9:19]  ³⁶ sn The pronouns you…you are plural, indicating that Jesus is speaking to a group rather than an individual.