Psalms 24:4

24:4 The one whose deeds are blameless

and whose motives are pure, ¹ 

who does not lie, ² 

or make promises with no intention of keeping them. ³ 

Psalms 26:6

26:6 I maintain a pure lifestyle, ⁴ 

so I can appear before your altar, ⁵  O Lord,

Psalms 51:10

51:10 Create for me a pure heart, O God! ⁶ 

Renew a resolute spirit within me! ⁷ 

Hebrews 10:19-22

Drawing Near to God in Enduring Faith

10:19 Therefore, brothers and sisters, ⁸  since we have confidence to enter the sanctuary by the blood of Jesus, 10:20 by the fresh and living way that he inaugurated for us ⁹  through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, ¹⁰  10:21 and since we have a great priest ¹¹  over the house of God, 10:22 let us draw near with a sincere heart in the assurance that faith brings, ¹²  because we have had our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience ¹³  and our bodies washed in pure water.

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. ¹⁴ 

[24:4]  ¹ tn Heb “the innocent of hands and the pure of heart.” The “hands” allude to one’s actions, the “heart” to one’s thought life and motives.

[24:4]  ² tn Heb “who does not lift up for emptiness my life.” The first person pronoun on נַפְשִׁי (nafshiy, “my life”) makes little sense here; many medieval Hebrew mss support the ancient versions in reading a third person pronoun “his.” The idiom “lift the life” here means to “long for” or “desire strongly.” In this context (note the reference to an oath in the following line) “emptiness” probably refers to speech (see Ps 12:2).

[24:4]  ³ tn Heb “and does not swear an oath deceitfully.”

[26:6]  ⁴ tn Heb “I wash my hands in innocence.” The psalmist uses an image from cultic ritual to picture his moral lifestyle. The imperfect verbal emphasizes that this is his habit.

[26:6]  ⁵ tn Heb “so I can go around your altar” (probably in ritual procession). Following the imperfect of the preceding line, the cohortative with vav (ו) conjunctive indicates purpose or result.

[51:10]  ⁶ sn The heart is viewed here as the seat of the psalmist’s motives and moral character.

[51:10]  ⁷ tn Heb “and a reliable spirit renew in my inner being.”

[10:19]  ⁸ tn Grk “brothers.” See note on the phrase “brothers and sisters” in 2:11.

[10:20]  ⁹ tn Grk “that he inaugurated for us as a fresh and living way,” referring to the entrance mentioned in v. 19.

[10:20]  ¹⁰ sn Through his flesh. In a bold shift the writer changes from a spatial phrase (Christ opened the way through the curtain into the inner sanctuary) to an instrumental phrase (he did this through [by means of] his flesh in his sacrifice of himself), associating the two in an allusion to the splitting of the curtain in the temple from top to bottom (Matt 27:51; Mark 15:38; Luke 23:45). Just as the curtain was split, so Christ’s body was broken for us, to give us access into God’s presence.

[10:21]  ¹¹ tn Grk “and a great priest,” continuing the construction begun in v. 19.

[10:22]  ¹² tn Grk “in assurance of faith.”

[10:22]  ¹³ sn The phrase our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience combines the OT imagery of the sprinkling with blood to give ritual purity with the emphasis on the interior cleansing provided by the new covenant: It is the heart that is cleansed and the conscience made perfect (cf. Heb 8:10; 9:9, 14; 10:2, 16).

[4:8]  ¹⁴ tn Or “two-minded” (the same description used in 1:8).