³ tn Heb “lest [someone] visit [harm] upon it, night and day I guard it.”

⁴ tn Or “great harm to ourselves.” The word “disaster” (or “harm”) is the same one that has been translated “destroying” in the preceding line and in vv. 3 and 13.

¹ tn The oath formula is used: “if you do us harm” means “so that you will not do.”

² tn Heb “and they will not harm you in another field”; NRSV “otherwise you might be bothered in another field.”

² tn Heb “and act from [i.e., so as to prevent] harm so that I might not be in pain.”

² tn The Qal active participle functions verbally here. The word stresses both social and physical harm and violence.

² sn Brings harm. Whoever tries to live without wisdom is inviting all kinds of disaster into his life.

² tn Heb “[to] the writers who write out harm.” The participle and verb are in the Piel, suggesting repetitive action.

² sn Do not harm yourself. Again the irony is that Paul is the agent through whom the jailer is spared.

³ tn Heb “to harm.” The noun רַע (ra’) has a four-fold range of meanings: (1) “pain, harm” (Prov 3:30), (2) “calamity, disaster” (13:21), (3) “distress, misery” (14:32) and (4) “moral evil” (8:13; see BDB 948-49 s.v.). The parallelism with “swift to shed blood” suggests it means “to inflict harm, injury.”

¹ tn Heb “strikes.” Here the verb has the nuance “to harm in any way.” It would include assaulting the woman or killing the man.

³ tn Heb “he takes an oath to do harm and does not change.” The phrase “to do harm” cannot mean “do harm to others,” for the preceding verse clearly characterizes this individual as one who does not harm others. In this context the phrase must refer to an oath to which a self-imprecation is attached. The godly individual takes his commitments to others so seriously he is willing to “swear to his own hurt.” For an example of such an oath, see Ruth 1:16-17.

² tn Heb “I know the plans that I am planning for you, oracle of the Lord, plans of well-being and not for harm to give to you….”

² tn Heb “Behold, I am watching over them for evil/disaster/harm not for good/prosperity/ blessing.” See a parallel usage in 31:28.

³ tn Grk “shaking the creature off…he suffered no harm.” The participle ἀποτινάξας (apotinaxa") has been translated as a finite verb due to requirements of contemporary English style.

⁴ tn Or “is not looking out for these people’s best interests but is really trying to do them harm”; Heb “is not seeking the welfare [or “well-being”; Hebrew shalom] of this people but [their] harm [more literally, evil].”

⁸ tn Heb “a man exercises power over [another] man to his harm” [or “to his own harm”]. The 3rd person masculine singular singular pronominal suffix לוֹ (lo, “to his”) may refer to the antecedent אָדָם (’adam, “man” or “men”), being understood either in a singular sense (so NEB, RSV, NRSV, NAB, ASV, NASB) or in a collective sense (Moffatt, NJPS, NIV margin). However, the antecedent might be הָאָדם (ha’adam, “[one] man” = the king) with the suffix functioning reflexively: “to his own harm” (KJV, ASV margin, YLT, Douay, NIV).

¹ tn Heb “This pile is a witness and the pillar is a witness, if I go past this pile to you and if you go past this pile and this pillar to me for harm.”

² tn Heb “they extend against you harm.” The perfect verbal forms in v. 11 are taken as generalizing, stating factually what the king’s enemies typically do. Another option is to translate with the past tense (“they intended…planned”).

² sn The word “feet” is here a synecdoche, a part for the whole. Being the instruments of movement, they represent the swift and eager actions of the whole person to do some harm.