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King James Version

Zephaniah 3:1

Woe to her that is filthy and polluted, to the oppressing city!

Bible Study Resources

Concordances:

- The Topic Concordance - Chastisement;   Closeness;   Disobedience;   Priests;   Prophecy and Prophets;   Trust;   Unjustness;  

Dictionaries:

- American Tract Society Bible Dictionary - Woe;   Fausset Bible Dictionary - Zephaniah, the Book of;   Holman Bible Dictionary - Zephaniah, Book of;   Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible - Zephaniah (1);  

Encyclopedias:

- The Jewish Encyclopedia - Judah Ha-Darshan ben Moses;  

Devotionals:

- Every Day Light - Devotion for February 19;  

Parallel Translations

Christian Standard Bible®
Woe to the city that is rebellious and defiled,
Hebrew Names Version
Woe to her who is rebellious and polluted, the oppressing city!
King James Version (1611)
Woe to her that is filthie and polluted, to the oppressing citie.
English Standard Version
Woe to her who is rebellious and defiled, the oppressing city!
New American Standard Bible
Woe to her who is rebellious and defiled, The oppressive city!
New Century Version
How terrible for the wicked, stubborn city of Jerusalem, which hurts its own people.
Amplified Bible
Woe (judgment is coming) to her who is rebellious and defiled, The tyrannical city [Jerusalem]!
Geneva Bible (1587)
Woe to her that is filthie and polluted, to the robbing citie.
New American Standard Bible (1995)
Woe to her who is rebellious and defiled, The tyrannical city!
Legacy Standard Bible
Woe to her who is rebellious and defiled,The oppressive city!
Berean Standard Bible
Woe to the city of oppressors, rebellious and defiled!
Contemporary English Version
Too bad for that disgusting, corrupt, and lawless city!
Complete Jewish Bible
Woe to her who is filthy, defiled; woe to the tyrant city!
Darby Translation
Woe to her that is rebellious and corrupted, to the oppressing city!
Easy-to-Read Version
Jerusalem, your people fought against God. They hurt other people, and you have been stained with sin.
George Lamsa Translation
OH, the famous city, the saved city; the city of Jonah!
Good News Translation
Jerusalem is doomed, that corrupt, rebellious city that oppresses its own people.
Lexham English Bible
Woe to you, O rebellious and defiled one! The oppressing city!
Literal Translation
Woe to her rebelling and being defiled, to the oppressing city!
American Standard Version
Woe to her that is rebellious and polluted! to the oppressing city!
Bible in Basic English
Sorrow to her who is uncontrolled and unclean, the cruel town!
JPS Old Testament (1917)
Woe to her that is filthy and polluted, to the oppressing city!
Bishop's Bible (1568)
Wo to that abhominable, filthy, and cruel citie.
Brenton's Septuagint (LXX)
This is the scornful city that dwells securely, that says in her heart, I am, and there is no longer any to be after me: how is she become desolate, a habitation of wild beasts! every one that passes through her shall hiss, and shake his hands.
English Revised Version
Woe to her that is rebellious and polluted, to the oppressing city!
World English Bible
Woe to her who is rebellious and polluted, the oppressing city!
Wycliffe Bible (1395)
Wo! thou citee, terrere to wraththe, and bouyt ayen a culuer.
Update Bible Version
Woe to her that is rebellious and polluted! to the oppressing city!
Webster's Bible Translation
Woe to her that is filthy and polluted, to the oppressing city!
New English Translation
The filthy, stained city is as good as dead; the city filled with oppressors is finished!
New King James Version
Woe to her who is rebellious and polluted, To the oppressing city!
New Living Translation
What sorrow awaits rebellious, polluted Jerusalem, the city of violence and crime!
New Life Bible
It is bad for her who does not obey and is unclean, the city who makes it hard for the people!
New Revised Standard
Ah, soiled, defiled, oppressing city!
J.B. Rotherham Emphasized Bible
Alas for her that is rebellious, and polluted, the city that oppresseth!
Douay-Rheims Bible
Woe to the provoking and redeemed city, the dove.
Revised Standard Version
Woe to her that is rebellious and defiled, the oppressing city!
Young's Literal Translation
Wo [to] the rebellious and polluted, The oppressing city!
Miles Coverdale Bible (1535)
Wo to the abhominable, fylthie and cruel cite:
THE MESSAGE
Doom to the rebellious city, the home of oppressors—Sewer City! The city that wouldn't take advice, wouldn't accept correction, Wouldn't trust God , wouldn't even get close to her own god! Her very own leaders are rapacious lions, Her judges are rapacious timber wolves out every morning prowling for a fresh kill. Her prophets are out for what they can get. They're opportunists—you can't trust them. Her priests desecrate the Sanctuary. They use God's law as a weapon to maim and kill souls. Yet God remains righteous in her midst, untouched by the evil. He stays at it, day after day, meting out justice. At evening he's still at it, strong as ever. But evil men and women, without conscience and without shame, persist in evil.

Contextual Overview

1 Woe to her that is filthy and polluted, to the oppressing city! 2 She obeyed not the voice; she received not correction; she trusted not in the Lord ; she drew not near to her God. 3 Her princes within her are roaring lions; her judges are evening wolves; they gnaw not the bones till the morrow. 4 Her prophets are light and treacherous persons: her priests have polluted the sanctuary, they have done violence to the law. 5 The just Lord is in the midst thereof; he will not do iniquity: every morning doth he bring his judgment to light, he faileth not; but the unjust knoweth no shame. 6 I have cut off the nations: their towers are desolate; I made their streets waste, that none passeth by: their cities are destroyed, so that there is no man, that there is none inhabitant. 7 I said, Surely thou wilt fear me, thou wilt receive instruction; so their dwelling should not be cut off, howsoever I punished them: but they rose early, and corrupted all their doings.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

her that is filthy: or, gluttonous, Heb. craw, Leviticus 1:16

to the: Isaiah 5:7, Isaiah 30:12, Isaiah 59:13, Jeremiah 6:6, Jeremiah 22:17, Ezekiel 22:7, Ezekiel 22:29, Amos 3:9, Amos 4:1, Micah 2:2, Zechariah 7:10, Malachi 3:5

Reciprocal: Exodus 23:6 - General Psalms 55:10 - mischief Isaiah 1:5 - the whole Isaiah 1:21 - it was full Isaiah 4:4 - washed away Isaiah 59:14 - General Jeremiah 3:5 - thou hast spoken Jeremiah 5:3 - thou hast stricken Jeremiah 9:13 - General Jeremiah 11:9 - General Jeremiah 13:27 - Woe Jeremiah 16:18 - they have defiled Jeremiah 30:15 - for the Jeremiah 32:32 - they Jeremiah 38:4 - the princes Jeremiah 51:5 - though Lamentations 1:5 - for Ezekiel 9:9 - The iniquity Ezekiel 16:23 - woe Ezekiel 16:36 - Because Ezekiel 19:2 - A lioness Ezekiel 33:29 - because Hosea 4:2 - swearing Hosea 5:2 - a rebuker Nahum 3:1 - to 1 Thessalonians 4:6 - defraud

Cross-References

Genesis 3:13
And the Lord God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat.
Genesis 3:15
And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.
Ecclesiastes 4:10
For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow: but woe to him that is alone when he falleth; for he hath not another to help him up.
Isaiah 27:1
In that day the Lord with his sore and great and strong sword shall punish leviathan the piercing serpent, even leviathan that crooked serpent; and he shall slay the dragon that is in the sea.
Matthew 4:3
And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.
Matthew 4:6
And saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.
Matthew 4:9
And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.
Matthew 10:16
Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves.
2 Corinthians 11:14
And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light.
1 Peter 3:7
Likewise, ye husbands, dwell with them according to knowledge, giving honour unto the wife, as unto the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life; that your prayers be not hindered.

Gill's Notes on the Bible

Woe to her that is filthy, and polluted,.... Meaning the city of Jerusalem, and its inhabitants; not as before the Babylonish captivity, but after their return from it, under the second temple, as Abarbinel owns; and even as in the times before and at the coming of Christ, and the preaching of his apostles among them; as the whole series of the prophecy, and the connection of the several parts of it, show; and there are such plain intimations of the conversion of the Gentiles, and of such a happy state of the Jews, in which they shall see evil no more, as can agree with no other times than the times of the Gospel, both the beginning and latter part of them. The character of this city, and its inhabitants, is, that it was "filthy", and polluted with murders, adulteries, oppression, rapine, and other sins: our Lord often calls them a wicked and an adulterous generation; and yet they pretended to great purity of life and manners; and they were pure in their own eyes, though not washed from their filthiness; they took much pains to make clean the outside of the cup, but within were full of impurity, Matthew 23:25. In the margin it is, "woe to her that is gluttonous". The word is used for the craw or crop of a fowl, Leviticus 1:16 hence some render it t "woe to the craw"; to the city that is all craw, to which Jerusalem is compared for its devouring the wealth and substance of others. The Scribes and Pharisees in Christ's time are said to devour widows' houses, Matthew 23:14 and this seems to be the sin with which they were defiled, and here charged with. Some think the word signifies one that is publicly, infamous; either made a public example of, or openly exposed, as sometimes filthy harlots are; or rather one "that has made herself infamous" u; by her sins and vices:

to the oppressing city! that oppressed the poor, the widow, and the fatherless. This may have respect to the inhabitants of Jerusalem stoning the prophets of the Lord sent unto them; to the discouragements they laid the followers of Christ under, by not suffering such to come to hear him that were inclined; threatening to cast them out of their synagogues if they professed him, which passed into a law; and to their killing the Lord of life and glory; and the persecution of his apostles, ministers, and people: see Matthew 23:13. Some render it, "to the city a dove" w; being like a silly dove without heart, as in Hosea 7:11. R. Azariah x thinks Jerusalem is so called because in its works it was like Babylon, which had for its military sign on its standard a dove; Hosea 7:11- : Hosea 7:11- : Hosea 7:11- : but the former sense is best.

t הוי מוראה "vae ingluviei", Junius Tremellius, Piscator. u ουας τη παραδειγματιζομηνη "vae huic quae infamatur", L'Empereur Not. in Mosis Kimchii οιδοποζια "ad scientiam", p. 174. so Drusius and Tarnovius. w חעיר היונה πολις η περιστερα, Sept. "civitas columba", V. L.; so Syr. Ar. Jarchi, and other Jewish interpreters. x Meor Enayin, c. 21. fol. 90. 1.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

The “woe,” having gone round the pagan nations, again circles round where it began, the “Jerusalem that killed the prophets and stoned those that were sent unto her” Matthew 23:37. Woe upon her, and joy to the holy Jerusalem, the “new Jerusalem Revelation 3:12; Revelation 21:10, the Jerusalem which is from above, the mother of us all,” close this prophecy; both in figure; destruction of her and the whole earth, in time, the emblem of the eternal death; and the love of God, the foretaste of endless joy in Him.

Woe - “Rebellious and polluted;” “thou oppressive city!” . The address is the more abrupt, and bursts more upon her, since the prophet does not name her. He uses as her proper name, not her own name, city of peace,” but “rebellious,” “polluted;” then he sums up in one, thou “oppressive city.”

Jerusalem’s sin is threefold, actively rebelling against God; then, inwardly defiled by sin; then cruel to man. So then, toward God, in herself, toward man, she is wholly turned to evil, not in passing acts, but in her abiding state:

(1) rebellious

(2) defiled

(3) oppressive

She is known only by what she has become, and what has been done for her in vain. She is rebellious, and so had had the law; defiled, and so had been cleansed; and therefore her state is the more hopeless.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

CHAPTER III

The prophet reproves Jerusalem, and all her guides and rulers,

for their obstinate perseverance in impiety, notwithstanding

all the warnings and corrections which they had received from

God, 1-7.

They are encouraged, however, after they shall have been

chastised for their idolatry, and cured of it, to look for

mercy and restoration, 8-13;

and exited to hymns of joy at the glorious prospect, 14-17.

After which the prophet concludes with large promises of

favour and prosperity in the days of the Messiah, 18-20.

We take this extensive view of the concluding verses of this

chapter, because an apostle has expressly assured us that in

EVERY prophetical book of the Old Testament Scriptures are

confined predictions relative to the Gospel dispensation.

See Acts 3:24.

NOTES ON CHAP. III

Verse Zephaniah 3:1. Wo to her that is filthy — This is a denunciation of Divine judgment against Jerusalem.


 
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