Zephaniah 3:9

3:9 Know for sure that I will then enable

the nations to give me acceptable praise. ¹ 

All of them will invoke the Lord’s name when they pray, ² 

and will worship him in unison. ³ 

Zephaniah 3:11

3:11 In that day you ⁴  will not be ashamed of all your rebelliousness against me, ⁵ 

for then I will remove from your midst those who proudly boast, ⁶ 

and you will never again be arrogant on my holy hill.

Zephaniah 3:7

3:7 I thought, ⁷  ‘Certainly you will respect ⁸  me!

Now you will accept correction!’

If she had done so, her home ⁹  would not be destroyed ¹⁰ 

by all the punishments I have threatened. ¹¹ 

But they eagerly sinned

in everything they did. ¹² 

Zephaniah 1:5

1:5 I will remove ¹³  those who worship the stars in the sky from their rooftops, ¹⁴ 

those who swear allegiance to the Lord ¹⁵  while taking oaths in the name of ¹⁶  their ‘king,’ ¹⁷ 

Zephaniah 1:8

1:8 “On the day of the Lord’s sacrificial meal,

I will punish the princes ¹⁸  and the king’s sons,

and all who wear foreign styles of clothing. ¹⁹ 

Zephaniah 1:14

1:14 The Lord’s great day of judgment ²⁰  is almost here;

it is approaching very rapidly!

There will be a bitter sound on the Lord’s day of judgment;

at that time warriors will cry out in battle. ²¹ 

Zephaniah 2:11

2:11 The Lord will terrify them, ²² 

for ²³  he will weaken ²⁴  all the gods of the earth.

All the distant nations will worship the Lord in their own lands. ²⁵ 

Zephaniah 3:13

3:13 The Israelites who remain ²⁶  will not act deceitfully.

They will not lie,

and a deceitful tongue will not be found in their mouth.

Indeed, they will graze peacefully like sheep ²⁷  and lie down;

no one will terrify them.”

Zephaniah 3:15

3:15 The Lord has removed the judgment against you; ²⁸ 

he has turned back your enemy.

Israel’s king, the Lord, is in your midst!

You no longer need to fear disaster.

[3:9]  ¹ tn Heb “Certainly [or perhaps, “For”] then I will restore to the nations a pure lip.”

[3:9]  ² tn Heb “so that all of them will call on the name of the Lord.”

[3:9]  ³ tn Heb “so that [they] will serve him [with] one shoulder.”

[3:11]  ⁴ sn The second person verbs and pronouns are feminine singular, indicating that personified Jerusalem is addressed here.

[3:11]  ⁵ tn Heb “In that day you not be ashamed because of all your actions, [in] which you rebelled against me.”

[3:11]  ⁶ tn Heb “the arrogant ones of your pride.”

[3:7]  ⁷ tn Heb “said.”

[3:7]  ⁸ tn Or “fear.” The second person verb form (“you will respect”) is feminine singular, indicating that personified Jerusalem is addressed.

[3:7]  ⁹ tn Or “dwelling place.”

[3:7]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “cut off.”

[3:7]  ¹¹ tn Heb “all which I have punished her.” The precise meaning of this statement and its relationship to what precedes are unclear.

[3:7]  ¹² tn Heb “But they got up early, they made corrupt all their actions.” The phrase “they got up early” probably refers to their eagerness to engage in sinful activities.

[1:5]  ¹⁰ tn The words “I will remove” are repeated from v. 4b for stylistic reasons. In the Hebrew text vv. 4b-6 contain a long list of objects for the verb “I will remove” in v. 4b. In the present translation a new sentence was begun at the beginning of v. 5 in keeping with the tendency of contemporary English to use shorter sentences.

[1:5]  ¹¹ tn Heb “those who worship on their roofs the host of heaven.” The “host of heaven” included the sun, moon, planets, and stars, all of which were deified in the ancient Near East.

[1:5]  ¹² tc The MT reads, “those who worship, those who swear allegiance to the Lord.” The original form of the LXX omits the phrase “those who worship”; it may have been accidentally repeated from the preceding line. J. J. M. Roberts prefers to delete as secondary the phrase “those who swear allegiance” (J. J. M. Roberts, Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah [OTL], 168).

[1:5]  ¹³ tn Heb “those who swear by.”

[1:5]  ¹⁴ tn The referent of “their king” is unclear. It may refer sarcastically to a pagan god (perhaps Baal) worshiped by the people. Some English versions (cf. NEB, NASB, NRSV) prefer to emend the text to “Milcom,” the name of an Ammonite god (following some LXX mss, Syriac, and Vulgate) or “Molech,” a god to whom the Israelites offered their children (cf. NIV, NLT). For a discussion of the options, see Adele Berlin, Zephaniah (AB 25A), 75-77.

[1:8]  ¹³ tn Or “officials” (NRSV, TEV); NLT “leaders.”

[1:8]  ¹⁴ sn The very dress of the royal court, foreign styles of clothing, revealed the degree to which Judah had assimilated foreign customs.

[1:14]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “The great day of the Lord.” The words “of judgment” are supplied in the translation here and later in this verse for clarity. See the note on the expression “day of judgment” in v. 7.

[1:14]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “the sound of the day of the Lord, bitter [is] one crying out there, a warrior.” The present translation does four things: (1) It takes מַר (mar, “bitter”) with what precedes (contrary to the accentuation of the MT). (2) It understands the participle צָרַח (tsarakh, “cry out in battle”) as verbal with “warrior” as its subject. (3) It takes שָׁם (sham, “there”) in a temporal sense, meaning “then, at that time.” (4) It understands “warrior” as collective.

[2:11]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “will be awesome over [or, “against”] them.”

[2:11]  ²⁰ tn Or “certainly.”

[2:11]  ²¹ tn The meaning of this rare Hebrew word is unclear. If the meaning is indeed “weaken,” then this line may be referring to the reduction of these gods’ territory through conquest (see Adele Berlin, Zephaniah [AB 25A], 110-11). Cf. NEB “reduce to beggary”; NASB “starve”; NIV “when he destroys”; NRSV “shrivel.”

[2:11]  ²² tn Heb “and all the coastlands of the nations will worship [or, “bow down”] to him, each from his own place.”

[3:13]  ²² tn Or “the remnant of Israel.”

[3:13]  ²³ tn The words “peacefully like sheep” are supplied in the translation for clarification.

[3:15]  ²⁵ tn Heb “your judgments,” that is, “the judgments directed against you.” The translation reflects the implications of the parallelism.