2 Samuel 12:10-11

12:10 So now the sword will never depart from your house. For you have despised me by taking the wife of Uriah the Hittite as your own!’ 12:11 This is what the Lord says: ‘I am about to bring disaster on you ¹  from inside your own household! ²  Right before your eyes I will take your wives and hand them over to your companion. ³  He will have sexual relations with ⁴  your wives in broad daylight! ⁵ 

2 Samuel 12:1

Nathan the Prophet Confronts David

12:1 So the Lord sent Nathan ⁶  to David. When he came to David, ⁷  Nathan ⁸  said, ⁹  “There were two men in a certain city, one rich and the other poor.

1 Samuel 4:3-11

4:3 When the army ¹⁰  came back to the camp, the elders of Israel said, “Why did the Lord let us be defeated today by ¹¹  the Philistines? Let’s take with us the ark of the covenant of the Lord from Shiloh. When it is with us, it will save us ¹²  from the hand of our enemies.

4:4 So the army ¹³  sent to Shiloh, and they took from there the ark of the covenant of the Lord of hosts who sits between the cherubim. Now the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phineas, were there with the ark of the covenant of God. 4:5 When the ark of the covenant of the Lord arrived at the camp, all Israel shouted so loudly ¹⁴  that the ground shook.

4:6 When the Philistines heard the sound of the shout, they said, “What is this loud shout in the camp of the Hebrews?” Then they realized that the ark of the Lord had arrived at the camp. 4:7 The Philistines were scared because they thought that gods had come to the camp. ¹⁵  They said, “Too bad for ¹⁶  us! We’ve never seen anything like this! 4:8 Too bad for us! Who can deliver us from the hand of these mighty gods? These are the gods who struck the Egyptians with all sorts of plagues in the desert! 4:9 Be strong and act like men, you Philistines, or else you will wind up serving the Hebrews the way they have served you! Act like men and fight!”

4:10 So the Philistines fought. Israel was defeated; they all ran home. ¹⁷  The slaughter was very great; thirty thousand foot soldiers fell in battle. 4:11 The ark of God was taken, and the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phineas, were killed.

Yeremia 7:4

7:4 Stop putting your confidence in the false belief that says, ¹⁸  “We are safe! ¹⁹  The temple of the Lord is here! The temple of the Lord is here! The temple of the Lord is here!” ²⁰ 

[12:11]  ¹ tn Heb “raise up against you disaster.”

[12:11]  ² tn Heb “house” (so NAB, NRSV); NCV, TEV, CEV “family.”

[12:11]  ³ tn Or “friend.”

[12:11]  ⁴ tn Heb “will lie with” (so NIV, NRSV); TEV “will have intercourse with”; CEV, NLT “will go to bed with.”

[12:11]  ⁵ tn Heb “in the eyes of this sun.”

[12:1]  ⁶ tc A few medieval Hebrew mss, the LXX, and the Syriac Peshitta add “the prophet.” The words are included in a few modern English version (e.g., TEV, CEV, NLT).

[12:1]  ⁷ tn Heb “him”; the referent (David) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[12:1]  ⁸ tn Heb “he”; the referent (Nathan) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[12:1]  ⁹ tn The Hebrew text repeats “to him.”

[4:3]  ¹⁰ tn Or “people.”

[4:3]  ¹¹ tn Heb “before.”

[4:3]  ¹² tn Heb “and it will come in our midst and it will save.” After the cohortative (see “let’s take”), the prefixed verbal forms with the prefixed conjunction indicate purpose or result. The translation understands the ark to be the subject of the third masculine singular verbs, although it is possible to understand the Lord as the subject. In the latter case, one should translate, “when he is with us, he will save us.”

[4:4]  ¹³ tn Or “people.”

[4:5]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “shouted [with] a great shout.”

[4:7]  ¹⁵ tn The Hebrew text has a direct quote, “because they said, ‘Gods have come to the camp.’” Even though the verb translated “have come” is singular, the following subject should be taken as plural (“gods”), as v. 8 indicates. Some emend the verb to a plural form.

[4:7]  ¹⁶ tn Traditionally “woe to.” They thought disaster was imminent.

[4:10]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “and they fled, each to his tents.”

[7:4]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “Stop trusting in lying words which say.”

[7:4]  ¹⁹ tn The words “We are safe!” are not in the text but are supplied in the translation for clarity.

[7:4]  ²⁰ tn Heb “The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord are these (i.e., these buildings).” Elsewhere triple repetition seems to mark a kind of emphasis (cf. Isa 6:3; Jer 22:29; Ezek 21:27 [32 HT]). The triple repetition that follows seems to be Jeremiah’s way of mocking the (false) sense of security that people had in the invincibility of Jerusalem because God dwelt in the temple. They appeared to be treating the temple as some kind of magical charm. A similar feeling had grown up around the ark in the time of the judges (cf. 1 Sam 3:3) and the temple and city of Jerusalem in Micah’s day (cf. Mic 3:11). It is reflected also in some of the Psalms (cf., e.g., Ps 46, especially v. 5).