Imamat 26:31

26:31 I will lay your cities waste ¹  and make your sanctuaries desolate, and I will refuse to smell your soothing aromas.

Imamat 26:1

Exhortation to Obedience

26:1 “‘You must not make for yourselves idols, ²  so you must not set up for yourselves a carved image or a pillar, and you must not place a sculpted stone in your land to bow down before ³  it, for I am the Lord your God.

1 Samuel 15:22

15:22 Then Samuel said,

“Does the Lord take pleasure in burnt offerings and sacrifices

as much as he does in obedience? ⁴ 

Certainly, ⁵  obedience ⁶  is better than sacrifice;

paying attention is better than ⁷  the fat of rams.

Ayub 36:11

36:11 If they obey and serve him,

they live out their days in prosperity

and their years in pleasantness. ⁸ 

Yeremia 40:3

40:3 Now he has brought it about. The Lord has done just as he threatened to do. This disaster has happened because you people sinned against the Lord and did not obey him. ⁹ 

[26:31]  ¹ tn Heb “And I will give your cities a waste”; NLT “make your cities desolate.”

[26:1]  ² sn For the literature regarding the difficult etymology and meaning of the term for “idols” (אֱלִילִם, ’elilim), see the literature cited in the note on Lev 19:4. It appears to be a diminutive play on words with אֵל (’el, “god, God”) and, perhaps at the same time, recalls a common Semitic word for “worthless, weak, powerless, nothingness.” Snaith suggests a rendering of “worthless godlings.”

[26:1]  ³ tn Heb “on.” The “sculpted stone” appears to be some sort of stone with images carved into (see B. A. Levine, Leviticus [JPSTC], 181, and J. E. Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 449).

[15:22]  ⁴ tn Heb “as [in] listening to the voice of the Lord.”

[15:22]  ⁵ tn Heb “look.”

[15:22]  ⁶ tn Heb “listening.”

[15:22]  ⁷ tn The expression “is better” is understood here by ellipsis (see the immediately preceding statement).

[36:11]  ⁸ tc Some commentators delete this last line for metrical considerations. But there is no textual evidence for the deletion; it is simply the attempt by some to make the meter rigid.

[40:3]  ⁹ tn Heb “Because you [masc. pl.] sinned against the Lord and did not hearken to his voice [a common idiom for “obey him”], this thing has happened to you [masc. pl.].”