Textorah

Jeremiah 13

1
כֹּה־אָמַר יְהוָה אֵלַי הָלוֹךְ וְקָנִיתָ לְּךָ אֵזוֹר פִּשְׁתִּים וְשַׂמְתּוֹ עַל־מָתְנֶיךָ וּבַמַּיִם לֹא תְבִאֵהוּ
Thus said HaShem unto me: 'Go, and get thee a linen girdle, and put it upon thy loins, and put it not in water.'
Τάδε λέγει Κύριος, βάδισον καὶ κτῆσαι σεαυτῷ περίζωμα λινοῦν, καὶ περίθου περὶ τὴν ὀσφύν σου, καὶ ἐν ὕδατι οὐ διελεύσεται.
Thus saith the Lord, Go and procure for thyself a linen girdle, and put it about thy loins, and let it not be put in water.
2
וָאֶקְנֶה אֶת־הָאֵזוֹר כִּדְבַר יְהוָה וָאָשִׂם עַל־מָתְנָי
So I got a girdle according to the word of HaShem, and put it upon my loins.
Καὶ ἐκτησάμην τὸ περίζωμα κατὰ τὸν λόγον Κυρίου, καὶ περιέθηκα περὶ τὴν ὀσφύν μου.
So I procured the girdle according to the word of the Lord, and put it about my loins.
3
וַיְהִי דְבַר־יְהוָה אֵלַי שֵׁנִית לֵאמֹר
And the word of HaShem came unto me the second time, saying:
Καὶ ἐγενήθη λόγος Κυρίου πρὸς μὲ, λέγων,
And the word of the Lord came to me, saying,
4
קַח אֶת־הָאֵזוֹר אֲשֶׁר קָנִיתָ אֲשֶׁר עַל־מָתְנֶיךָ וְקוּם לֵךְ פְּרָתָה וְטָמְנֵהוּ שָׁם בִּנְקִיק הַסָּלַע
'Take the girdle that thou hast gotten, which is upon thy loins, and arise, go to Perath, and hide it there in a cleft of the rock.'
λάβε τὸ περίζωμα τὸ περὶ τὴν ὀσφύν σου, καὶ ἀνάστηθι, καὶ βάδισον ἐπὶ τὸν Εὐφράτην, καὶ κατάκρυψον αὐτὸ ἐκεῖ ἐν τῇ τρυμαλιᾷ τῆς πέτρας.
Take the girdle that is upon thy loins, and arise, and go to the Euphrates, and hide it there in a hole of the rock.
5
וָאֵלֵךְ וָאֶטְמְנֵהוּ בִּפְרָת כַּאֲשֶׁר צִוָּה יְהוָה אוֹתִי
So I went, and hid it in Perath, as HaShem commanded me.
Καὶ ἐπορεύθην, καὶ ἔκρυψα αὐτὸ ἐν τῷ Εὐφράτῃ, καθὼς ἐνετείλατό μοι Κύριος.
So I went, and hid it by the Euphrates, as the Lord commanded me.
6
וַיְהִי מִקֵּץ יָמִים רַבִּים וַיֹּאמֶר יְהוָה אֵלַי קוּם לֵךְ פְּרָתָה וְקַח מִשָּׁם אֶת־הָאֵזוֹר אֲשֶׁר צִוִּיתִיךָ לְטָמְנוֹ־שָׁם
And it came to pass after many days, that HaShem said unto me: 'Arise, go to Perath, and take the girdle from thence, which I commanded thee to hide there.'
Καὶ ἐγένετο μεθʼ ἡμέρας πολλὰς, καὶ εἶπε Κύριος πρὸς μὲ, ἀνάστηθι, βάδισον ἐπὶ τὸν Εὐφράτην, καὶ λάβε ἐκεῖθεν τὸ περίζωμα, ὃ ἐνετειλάμην σοι τοῦ κατακρύψαι ἐκεῖ.
And it came to pass after many days, that the Lord said to me, Arise, go to the Euphrates, and take thence the girdle, which I commanded thee to hide there.
7
וָאֵלֵךְ פְּרָתָה וָאֶחְפֹּר וָאֶקַּח אֶת־הָאֵזוֹר מִן־הַמָּקוֹם אֲשֶׁר־טְמַנְתִּיו שָׁמָּה וְהִנֵּה נִשְׁחַת הָאֵזוֹר לֹא יִצְלַח לַכֹּל
Then I went to Perath, and digged, and took the girdle from the place where I had hid it; and, behold, the girdle was marred, it was profitable for nothing.
Καὶ ἐπορεύθην ἐπὶ τὸν Εὐφράτην ποταμὸν, καὶ ὤρυξα, καὶ ἔλαβον τὸ περίζωμα ἐκ τοῦ τόπου οὗ κατώρυξα αὐτὸ ἐκεῖ, καὶ ἰδοὺ διεφθαρμένον ἦν, ὃ οὐ μὴ χρησθῇ εἰς οὐθέν.
So I went to the river Euphrates, and dug, and took the girdle out of the place where I [had] buried it: and, behold, it was rotten, utterly good for nothing.
8
וַיְהִי דְבַר־יְהוָה אֵלַי לֵאמֹר
Then the word of HaShem came unto me, saying:
Καὶ ἐγενήθη λόγος Κυρίου πρὸς μὲ, λέγων,
And the word of the Lord came to me, saying, Thus saith the Lord,
9
כֹּה אָמַר יְהוָה כָּכָה אַשְׁחִית אֶת־גְּאוֹן יְהוּדָה וְאֶת־גְּאוֹן יְרוּשָׁלַ͏ִם הָרָב
Thus saith HaShem: After this manner will I mar the pride of Judah, and the great pride of Jerusalem,
Τάδε λέγει Κύριος, οὕτω φθερῶ τὴν ὕβριν Ἰούδα καὶ τὴν ὕβριν Ἱερουσαλὴμ,
Thus will I mar the pride of Judah, and the pride of Jerusalem;
10
הָעָם הַזֶּה הָרָע הַמֵּאֲנִים לִשְׁמוֹעַ אֶת־דְּבָרַי הַהֹלְכִים בִּשְׁרִרוּת לִבָּם וַיֵּלְכוּ אַחֲרֵי אֱלֹהִים אֲחֵרִים לְעָבְדָם וּלְהִשְׁתַּחֲוֺת לָהֶם וִיהִי כָּאֵזוֹר הַזֶּה אֲשֶׁר לֹא־יִצְלַח לַכֹּל
even this evil people, that refuse to hear My words, that walk in the stubbornness of their heart, and are gone after other gods to serve them, and to worship them, that it be as this girdle, which is profitable for nothing.
τὴν πολλὴν ταύτην ὕβριν, τοὺς μὴ βουλομένους ὑπακούειν τῶν λόγων μου, καὶ πορευθέντας ὀπίσω θεῶν ἀλλοτρίων τοῦ δουλεύειν αὐτοῖς, καὶ τοῦ προσκυνεῖν αὐτοῖς· καὶ ἔσονται ὥσπερ τὸ περίζωμα τοῦτο, ὃ οὐ χρησθήσεται εἰς οὐθέν.
[even] this great pride [of the men] that will not hearken to my words, and have gone after strange gods, to serve them, and to worship them: and they shall be as this girdle, which can be used for nothing.
11
כִּי כַּאֲשֶׁר יִדְבַּק הָאֵזוֹר אֶל־מָתְנֵי־אִישׁ כֵּן הִדְבַּקְתִּי אֵלַי אֶת־כָּל־בֵּית יִשְׂרָאֵל וְאֶת־כָּל־בֵּית יְהוּדָה נְאֻם־יְהוָה לִהְיוֹת לִי לְעָם וּלְשֵׁם וְלִתְהִלָּה וּלְתִפְאָרֶת וְלֹא שָׁמֵעוּ
For as the girdle cleaveth to the loins of a man, so have I caused to cleave unto Me the whole house of Israel and the whole house of Judah, saith HaShem, that they might be unto Me for a people, and for a name, and for a praise, and for a glory; but they would not hearken.
Ὅτι καθάπερ κολλᾶται τὸ περίζωμα περὶ τὴν ὀσφὺν τοῦ ἀνθρώπου, οὕτως ἐκόλλησα πρὸς ἐμαυτὸν τὸν οἶκον τοῦ Ἰσραὴλ, καὶ πάντα οἶκον Ἰούδα, τοῦ γενέσθαι μοι εἰς λαὸν ὀνομαστὸν, καὶ εἰς καύχημα, καὶ εἰς δόξαν, καὶ οὐκ εἰσήκουσάν μου.
For as a girdle cleaves about the loins of a man, so have I caused to cleave to myself the house of Israel, and the whole house of Judah; that they might be to me a famous people, and a praise, and a glory: but they did not hearken to me.
12
וְאָמַרְתָּ אֲלֵיהֶם אֶת־הַדָּבָר הַזֶּה כֹּה־אָמַר יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל כָּל־נֵבֶל יִמָּלֵא יָיִן וְאָמְרוּ אֵלֶיךָ הֲיָדֹעַ לֹא נֵדַע כִּי כָל־נֵבֶל יִמָּלֵא יָיִן
Moreover thou shalt speak unto them this word: Thus saith HaShem, the G-d of Israel: 'Every bottle is filled with wine'; and when they shall say unto thee: 'Do we not know that every bottle is filled with wine?'
Καὶ ἐρεῖς πρὸς τὸν λαὸν τοῦτον, πᾶς ἀσκὸς πληρωθήσεται οἴνου· καὶ ἔσται ἐὰν εἴπωσι πρὸς σὲ, μὴ γνόντες οὐ γνωσόμεθα, ὅτι πᾶς ἀσκὸς πληρωθήσεται οἴνου;
And thou shalt say to this people, Every bottle shall be filled with wine: and it shall come to pass, if they shall say to thee, Shall we not certainly know that every bottle shall be filled with wine? that thou shalt say to them,
13
וְאָמַרְתָּ אֲלֵיהֶם כֹּה־אָמַר יְהוָה הִנְנִי מְמַלֵּא אֶת־כָּל־יֹשְׁבֵי הָאָרֶץ הַזֹּאת וְאֶת־הַמְּלָכִים הַיֹּשְׁבִים לְדָוִד עַל־כִּסְאוֹ וְאֶת־הַכֹּהֲנִים וְאֶת־הַנְּבִיאִים וְאֵת כָּל־יֹשְׁבֵי יְרוּשָׁלָ͏ִם שִׁכָּרוֹן
Then shalt thou say unto them: Thus saith HaShem: Behold, I will fill all the inhabitants of this land, even the kings that sit upon David's throne, and the priests, and the prophets, and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, with drunkenness.
Καὶ ἐρεῖς πρὸς αὐτοὺς, τάδε λέγει Κύριος, ἰδοὺ ἐγὼ πληρῶ τοὺς κατοικοῦντας τὴν γῆν ταύτην, καὶ τοὺς βασιλεῖς αὐτῶν τοὺς καθημένους υἱοὺς τοῦ Δαυὶδ ἐπὶ τοῦ θρόνου αὐτῶν, καὶ τοὺς ἱερεῖς καὶ τοὺς προφήτας, καὶ τὸν Ἰούδαν καὶ πάντας τοὺς κατοικοῦντας ἐν Ἱερουσαλὴμ, μεθύσματι·
Thus saith the Lord, Behold, I [will] fill the inhabitants of this land, and their kings the sons of David that sit upon their throne, and the priests, and the prophets, and Judah and all the dwellers in Jerusalem, with strong drink.
14
וְנִפַּצְתִּים אִישׁ אֶל־אָחִיו וְהָאָבוֹת וְהַבָּנִים יַחְדָּו נְאֻם־יְהוָה לֹא־אֶחְמוֹל וְלֹא־אָחוּס וְלֹא אֲרַחֵם מֵהַשְׁחִיתָם
And I will dash them one against another, even the fathers and the sons together, saith HaShem; I will not pity, nor spare, nor have compassion, that I should not destroy them.
Καὶ διασκορπιῶ αὐτοὺς ἄνδρα καὶ τὸν ἀδελφὸν αὐτοῦ, καὶ τοὺς πατέρας αὐτῶν, καὶ τοὺς υἱοὺς αὐτῶν ἐν τῷ αὐτῷ· οὐκ ἐπιποθήσω, λέγει Κύριος, καὶ οὐ φείσομαι, καὶ οὐκ οἰκτειρήσω ἀπὸ διαφθορᾶς αὐτῶν.
And I will scatter them a man and his brother, and their fathers and their sons together: I will not have compassion, saith the Lord, and I will not spare, neither will I pity [to save them] from destruction.
15
שִׁמְעוּ וְהַאֲזִינוּ אַל־תִּגְבָּהוּ כִּי יְהוָה דִּבֵּר
Hear ye, and give ear, be not proud; for HaShem hath spoken.
Ἀκούσατε, καὶ ἐνωτίσασθε, καὶ μὴ ἐπαίρεσθε, ὅτι Κύριος ἐλάλησε.
Hear ye, and give ear, and be not proud: for the Lord has spoken.
16
תְּנוּ לַיהוָה אֱלֹהֵיכֶם כָּבוֹד בְּטֶרֶם יַחְשִׁךְ וּבְטֶרֶם יִתְנַגְּפוּ רַגְלֵיכֶם עַל־הָרֵי נָשֶׁף וְקִוִּיתֶם לְאוֹר וְשָׂמָהּ לְצַלְמָוֶת ישית וְשִׁית לַעֲרָפֶל
Give glory to HaShem your G-d, before it grow dark, and before your feet stumble upon the mountains of twilight, and, while ye look for light, He turn it into the shadow of death, and make it gross darkness.
Δότε τῷ Κυρίῳ Θεῷ ὑμῶν δόξαν πρὸ τοῦ συσκοτάσαι, καὶ πρὸ τοῦ προσκόψαι πόδας ὑμῶν ἐπʼ ὄρη σκοτεινά· καὶ ἀναμενεῖτε εἰς φῶς, καὶ ἐκεῖ σκιὰ θανάτου καὶ τεθήσονται εἰς σκότος.
Give glory to the Lord your God, before he cause darkness, and before your feet stumble on the dark mountains, and ye shall wait for light, and behold the shadow of death, and they shall be brought into darkness.
17
וְאִם לֹא תִשְׁמָעוּהָ בְּמִסְתָּרִים תִּבְכֶּה־נַפְשִׁי מִפְּנֵי גֵוָה וְדָמֹעַ תִּדְמַע וְתֵרַד עֵינִי דִּמְעָה כִּי נִשְׁבָּה עֵדֶר יְהוָה
But if ye will not hear it, my soul shall weep in secret for your pride; and mine eyes shall weep sore, and run down with tears, because HaShem'S flock is carried away captive.
Ἐὰν δὲ μὴ ἀκούσητε, κεκρυμμένως κλαύσεται ἡ ψυχὴ ὑμῶν ἀπὸ προσώπου ὕβρεως, καὶ κατάξουσιν οἱ ὀφθαλμοὶ ὑμῶν δάκρυα, ὅτι συνετρίβη τὸ ποίμνιον Κυρίου.
But if ye will not hearken, your soul shall weep in secret because of pride, and your eyes shall pour down tears, because the Lord’s flock is sorely bruised.
18
אֱמֹר לַמֶּלֶךְ וְלַגְּבִירָה הַשְׁפִּילוּ שֵׁבוּ כִּי יָרַד מַרְאֲשׁוֹתֵיכֶם עֲטֶרֶת תִּפְאַרְתְּכֶם
Say thou unto the king and to the queen-mother: 'Sit ye down low; for your headtires are come down, even your beautiful crown.'
Εἴπατε τῷ βασιλεῖ καὶ τοῖς δυναστεύουσι, ταπεινώθητε καὶ καθίσατε, ὅτι καθῃρέθη ἀπὸ κεφαλῆς ὑμῶν στέφανος δόξης ὑμῶν.
Say ye to the king and the princes, Humble yourselves, and sit down; for your crown of glory is removed from your head.
19
עָרֵי הַנֶּגֶב סֻגְּרוּ וְאֵין פֹּתֵחַ הָגְלָת יְהוּדָה כֻּלָּהּ הָגְלָת שְׁלוֹמִים
The cities of the South are shut up, and there is none to open them; Judah is carried away captive all of it; it is wholly carried away captive.
Πόλεις αἱ πρὸς Νότον, συνεκλείσθησαν, καὶ οὐκ ἦν ὁ ἀνοίγων· ἀποικίσθη Ἰούδας, συνετέλεσαν ἀποικίαν τελείαν.
The cities toward the south were shut, and there was none to open [them]: Judah is removed [into captivity], they have suffered a complete removal.
20
שאי שְׂאוּ עֵינֵיכֶם וראי וּרְאוּ הַבָּאִים מִצָּפוֹן אַיֵּה הָעֵדֶר נִתַּן־לָךְ צֹאן תִּפְאַרְתֵּךְ
Lift up your eyes, and behold them that come from the north; where is the flock that was given thee, thy beautiful flock?
Ἀνάλαβε ὀφθαλμούς σου Ἱερουσαλὴμ, καὶ ἴδε τοὺς ἐρχομένους ἀπὸ Βοῤῥᾶ· ποῦ ἐστι τὸ ποίμνιον ὃ ἐδόθη σοι, πρόβατα δόξης σου;
Lift up thine eyes, O Jerusalem, and behold them that come from the north; where is the flock that was given thee, the sheep of thy glory?
21
מַה־תֹּאמְרִי כִּי־יִפְקֹד עָלַיִךְ וְאַתְּ לִמַּדְתְּ אֹתָם עָלַיִךְ אַלֻּפִים לְרֹאשׁ הֲלוֹא חֲבָלִים יֹאחֱזוּךְ כְּמוֹ אֵשֶׁת לֵדָה
What wilt thou say, when He shall set the friends over thee as head, whom thou thyself hast trained against thee? Shall not pangs take hold of thee, as of a woman in travail?
Τί ἐρεῖς ὅταν ἐπισκέπτωνταί σε; καὶ σὺ ἐδίδαξας αὐτοὺς ἐπὶ σὲ μαθήματα εἰς ἀρχήν· οὐκ ὠδῖνες καθέξουσί σε καθὼς γυναῖκα τίκτουσαν;
What wilt thou say when they shall visit thee, for thou didst teach them lessons for rule against thyself; shall not pangs seize thee as a woman in travail?
22
וְכִי תֹאמְרִי בִּלְבָבֵךְ מַדּוּעַ קְרָאֻנִי אֵלֶּה בְּרֹב עֲוֺנֵךְ נִגְלוּ שׁוּלַיִךְ נֶחְמְסוּ עֲקֵבָיִךְ
And if thou say in thy heart: 'Wherefore are these things befallen me?' --for the greatness of thine iniquity are thy skirts uncovered, and thy heels suffer violence.
Καὶ ἐὰν εἴπῃς ἐν τῇ καρδίᾳ σου, διατί ἀπήντησέ μοι ταῦτα; διὰ τὸ πλῆθος τῆς ἀδικίας σου ἀνεκαλύφθη τὰ ὀπίσθιά σου, παραδειγματισθῆναι τὰς πτέρνας σου.
And if thou shouldest say in thy heart, Wherefore have these things happened to me? Because of the abundance of thine iniquity have thy skirts been discovered, that thy heels might be exposed.
23
הֲיַהֲפֹךְ כּוּשִׁי עוֹרוֹ וְנָמֵר חֲבַרְבֻּרֹתָיו גַּם־אַתֶּם תּוּכְלוּ לְהֵיטִיב לִמֻּדֵי הָרֵעַ
Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? Then may ye also do good, that are accustomed to do evil.
Εἰ ἀλλάξεται Αἰθίοψ τὸ δέρμα αὐτοῦ, καὶ πάρδαλις τὰ ποικίλματα αὐτῆς, καὶ ὑμεῖς δυνήσεσθε εὐποιῆσαι μεμαθηκότες τὰ κακά.
If the Ethiopian shall change his skin, or the leopardess her spots, then shall ye be able to do good, having learned evil.
24
וַאֲפִיצֵם כְּקַשׁ־עוֹבֵר לְרוּחַ מִדְבָּר
Therefore will I scatter them, as the stubble that passeth away by the wind of the wilderness.
Καὶ διέσπειρα αὐτοὺς, ὡς φρύγανα φερόμενα ὑπὸ ἀνέμου εἰς ἔρημον.
So I scattered them as sticks carried by the wind into the wilderness.
25
זֶה גוֹרָלֵךְ מְנָת־מִדַּיִךְ מֵאִתִּי נְאֻם־יְהוָה אֲשֶׁר שָׁכַחַתְּ אוֹתִי וַתִּבְטְחִי בַּשָּׁקֶר
This is thy lot, the portion measured unto thee from Me, saith HaShem; because thou hast forgotten Me, and trusted in falsehood.
Οὕτως ὁ κλῆρός σου, καὶ μερὶς τοῦ ἀπειθεῖν ὑμᾶς ἐμοὶ, λέγει Κύριος· ὡς ἐπελάθου μου, καὶ ἤλπισας ἐπὶ ψεύδεσι,
Thus is thy lot, and the reward of your disobedience to me, saith the Lord; as thou didst forget me, and trust in lies,
26
וְגַם־אֲנִי חָשַׂפְתִּי שׁוּלַיִךְ עַל־פָּנָיִךְ וְנִרְאָה קְלוֹנֵךְ
Therefore will I also uncover thy skirts upon thy face, and thy shame shall appear.
κᾀγὼ ἀποκαλύψω τὰ ὀπίσω σου ἐπὶ τὸ πρόσωπόν σου, καὶ ὀφθήσεται ἡ ἀτιμία σου,
I also will expose thy skirts upon thy face, and thy shame shall be seen;
27
נִאֻפַיִךְ וּמִצְהֲלוֹתַיִךְ זִמַּת זְנוּתֵךְ עַל־גְּבָעוֹת בַּשָּׂדֶה רָאִיתִי שִׁקּוּצָיִךְ אוֹי לָךְ יְרוּשָׁלִַם לֹא תִטְהֲרִי אַחֲרֵי מָתַי עֹד
Thine adulteries, and thy neighings, the lewdness of thy harlotry, on the hills in the field have I seen thy detestable acts. Woe unto thee, O Jerusalem! thou wilt not be made clean! When shall it ever be?
καὶ ἡ μοιχεία σου, καὶ χρεμετισμός σου, καὶ ἡ ἀπαλλοτρίωσις τῆς πορνείας σου· ἐπὶ τῶν βουνῶν, καὶ ἐν τοῖς ἀγροῖς ἑώρακα τὰ βδελύγματά σου· οὐαί σοι Ἱερουσαλὴμ, ὅτι οὐκ ἐκαθαρίσθης ὀπίσω μου· ἕως τίνος ἔτι;
thine adultery also, and thy neighing, and the looseness of thy fornication: on the hills and in the fields I have seen thine abominations. Woe to thee, O Jerusalem, for thou hast not been purified so as to follow me; how long yet [shall it be]?

How it works

A parallel reader for the Hebrew Bible and its oldest witnesses: the Masoretic text, the Samaritan Pentateuch, the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Septuagint, each with an English translation where one is available.

Reading a chapter

Choose a book and chapter at the top, or type a reference into Go to (Isa 53:11, 1 Sam 3, sam 3:4, ii kgs 2, ben sira 51). Book names can be abbreviated; a name shared by numbered books (sam, kings, chr, macc) opens the first of them unless you add the number. The arrow keys move between chapters, and the address bar keeps a link to the verse you clicked, so you can bookmark or share a place.

Each row is one verse. Rows follow the Masoretic verse numbering, so the Hebrew, JPS and Samaritan columns line up exactly. The Septuagint is numbered differently in many places (Psalms, Jeremiah, Exodus 35–40, parts of Kings, Proverbs, Daniel, and dozens of chapter boundaries). Its verses are placed against their Masoretic counterparts, and a small tag such as 50:3 shows the Septuagint's own number when it differs. Greek verses that have no Masoretic counterpart (for example the Prayer of Azariah in Daniel 3) appear in reading order as separate rows marked LXX.

Columns

The chips at the top switch columns on and off. Drag a chip (or a column heading) to reorder; with a chip focused, the ← → keys move it. Your choice is remembered. The Samaritan columns appear only in Genesis–Deuteronomy; the scrolls column appears wherever a manuscript survives, including Ben Sira. Columns marked † are licensed for non-commercial use only.

Words: lexicon and concordance

Hover over any Hebrew word (Masoretic, Samaritan or scroll) or any Greek word to see its dictionary form, Strong's number, a short gloss and its grammar. Click the word to open the concordance on the right: the full lexicon entry, then every occurrence, grouped by book — for Hebrew, separately for the Masoretic text, the Samaritan Pentateuch and the scrolls (with the manuscript named). Click a reference to go there; every form of the word in the chapter is highlighted. You can also type a word or a Strong's number into Lexicon at the top.

In the Masoretic text, a Ketiv (the written form, unpointed) is shown in grey immediately before its Qere (the form read aloud); both carry the Qere's dictionary entry.

Variants

The Samaritan Pentateuch and every scroll are compared word by word with the Masoretic text of the same verse:

In the scrolls, letters in brackets are a modern editor's reconstruction and are never counted as variants; letters with a dotted overline are uncertain; ◦ is a trace of an unreadable letter. Manuscripts written in paleo-Hebrew script, and divine names that square-script scrolls write in paleo-Hebrew, are shown in paleo-Hebrew letters (switchable under Display). Hover a manuscript to see its edition. Display → Dead Sea Scrolls can hide the manuscripts that agree with the Masoretic text, or strip the reconstructions to show only what survives.

The comparison is automatic. It aligns words by spelling, so a transposition or a long rewritten passage can be marked imperfectly, and the spelling rule cannot tell a suffix from a vowel letter. Treat the colours as a finding aid and check a critical edition before building an argument on a reading.

Books outside the Hebrew Bible

Besides the Septuagint-only books, the book list has 1 Enoch and Jubilees (“Other ancient books”), shown in R. H. Charles's English with the Qumran copies beside them, and Psalms has a chapter 151. Their scroll copies — like those of Tobit and Ben Sira — have no verse numbers in the data: each fragment is placed by its published identification, and its lines are spread over those verses, so treat the exact verse boundaries as approximate. Aramaic copies (Tobit 4Q196–199 and all of Enoch) are marked “Aramaic” and have no word lookups.

Rabbinic citations

The small ❝ under a verse number opens the passages of rabbinic literature that cite that verse — Mishnah, Tosefta, both Talmuds, Midrash, Targum and Kabbalah (and, if you tick the box, later halakhah, liturgy and thought) — fetched live from Sefaria, so it needs an internet connection. Each passage is listed with Sefaria's date for the work it comes from and a link to read it there. Sefaria's links include allusions and discussions as well as quotations; those it classes as quotations are marked. It works for the Hebrew Bible, Ben Sira (by Kahana's numbering, e.g. the Talmud's quotations of Ben Sira), Tobit and Jubilees. For 1 Enoch, which the rabbis do not quote, it lists instead the Zohar's passages about a “Book of Enoch”.

How the Septuagint is aligned

Each Greek verse is placed by combining three things: the standard table of Septuagint–Masoretic verse correspondences (SIL's lxx.vrs), the table of Masoretic–English numbering differences, and a comparison of the English of Brenton's Septuagint with the JPS English, which confirms each pairing and catches displaced verses. Where no Masoretic verse is similar enough, the Greek verse stands on its own row.

The Greek word data

No openly licensed word-by-word analysis of Brenton's Greek exists, so each Greek word is matched to the most frequent analysis of the same form in the openly licensed Swete Septuagint (Morpheus parser), then to a lexicon entry. About 95% of words are identified. Parses of ambiguous forms (e.g. αὐτοῦ, τοῦ) can be wrong; the card says "automatic parse" as a reminder.

About the texts

What each column is, where it comes from, and what to keep in mind when reading it.

Masoretic Text — Westminster Leningrad Codex

The Masoretic text is the Hebrew Bible as transmitted by the Masoretes, scribal scholars active in Tiberias and elsewhere roughly from the 7th to the 10th century, who fixed its vowel points, accents and marginal notes (the Masorah) around a consonantal text that was already essentially stable by the 1st–2nd century CE. The Leningrad Codex (St Petersburg, Firkovich I B 19 A), copied in 1008/1009 CE in the Ben Asher tradition, is the oldest complete manuscript of the Hebrew Bible; the slightly older Aleppo Codex lost most of the Torah in 1947. It is the base of the standard critical editions (BHK, BHS, BHQ).

The Westminster Leningrad Codex is the public-domain digital transcription of it maintained by the J. Alan Groves Center at Westminster Theological Seminary. In this edition a Ketiv appears as its own unpointed word before the pointed Qere.

JPS 1917 — The Holy Scriptures according to the Masoretic Text

The first English Bible translation produced by a committee of Jewish scholars for the Jewish Publication Society of America, under Max L. Margolis as editor-in-chief, published in 1917. Its language deliberately follows the cadence of the King James and Revised Versions, but its renderings follow the Masoretic text and Jewish exegetical tradition, and it keeps the Hebrew chapter and verse numbering. It is in the public domain; its successor, the New JPS (Tanakh, 1985), is not. The electronic edition used here writes the divine names as “HaShem” and “G-d”.

Septuagint — Brenton's Greek text and the Updated Brenton English

The Septuagint is the Jewish translation of the Hebrew scriptures into Greek. The Torah was translated in Alexandria in the 3rd century BCE (the Letter of Aristeas tells the legend of 72 translators under Ptolemy II); the other books followed over the next two centuries. Because it was made from Hebrew manuscripts older than the Masoretic text, it often preserves a different Hebrew text: Jeremiah is about one-seventh shorter and differently ordered (a shorter Hebrew text of this type survives at Qumran in 4QJerb,d), Job is about one-sixth shorter, and Esther and Daniel have long additions. It was the Bible of Philo, Josephus and the New Testament writers, and became the Old Testament of the Greek church, which in turn led Jewish translators (Aquila, Symmachus, Theodotion) to produce closer revisions.

Sir Lancelot C. L. Brenton published an English translation in 1844 and a Greek–English edition in 1851. His Greek is essentially the Sixtine (Roman) edition of 1587, which follows the 4th-century Codex Vaticanus. It is older and less critical than the modern editions of Rahlfs (1935) and Göttingen, which are under copyright. The English column is the Updated Brenton (Adam Boyd, 2020), Brenton's translation with modernised spelling and wording, dedicated to the public domain.

Samaritan Pentateuch †

The Torah as preserved by the Samaritan community of Mount Gerizim (Nablus), written in the Samaritan script, a descendant of the paleo-Hebrew alphabet. It differs from the Masoretic text in about 6,000 places, most of them spelling or grammar; in about 1,900 of them it agrees with the Septuagint. Some readings are distinctively Samaritan, above all the commandment to build an altar on Mount Gerizim added after the Ten Commandments (Exod 20:17; Deut 5:21) and “Gerizim” for “Ebal” in Deut 27:4. Many others — harmonising expansions that copy one passage into its parallel — are shared with “pre-Samaritan” Qumran manuscripts such as 4QpaleoExodm and 4QNumb, showing that the text type is older than the Samaritan schism.

European scholars learned of it in 1616, when Pietro della Valle brought a manuscript from Damascus; it was printed in the Paris (1645) and London (1657) Polyglots, collated by Benjamin Kennicott (1776–80) and edited critically by August von Gall (1914–18). The Hebrew here is Aleksandr Sigalov's digital text, based on Kennicott and checked against von Gall; the English is Sigalov's adaptation of the King James Version to the Samaritan readings. For modern scholarship see Abraham Tal's edition of MS Shechem 6 and Stefan Schorch's critical editio maior.

Dead Sea Scrolls and other Judean Desert manuscripts †

Between 1947 and 1956 the remains of about 950 manuscripts were found in eleven caves near Khirbet Qumran. Some 230 are biblical — every book of the Hebrew Bible except Esther is represented, from tiny fragments to the complete Great Isaiah Scroll (1QIsaa) — dating from about 250 BCE to 68 CE. They are a thousand years older than the Leningrad Codex. Most are close to the ancestor of the Masoretic text (“proto-Masoretic”), but others agree with the Septuagint (4QJerb, 4QSama in places), with the Samaritan text type, or with neither — evidence that several forms of the text circulated side by side before the Masoretic text prevailed.

Manuscripts from other sites fill out the picture: Masada (before its fall in 73/74 CE; excavated by Yigael Yadin, 1963–65) and the Bar Kokhba refuges of Wadi Murabba'at and Naḥal Ḥever (132–135 CE), whose biblical texts are already virtually identical with the Masoretic text, as well as Naḥal Ṣe'elim, Wadi Sdeir and Naḥal Arugot. The official publication is the Discoveries in the Judaean Desert series (Oxford, 1955–2010).

The transcriptions here are those of Martin G. Abegg Jr., James E. Bowley and Edward M. Cook, as converted by the Eep Talstra Centre for Bible and Computer (ETCBC). Each manuscript is labelled with its siglum (e.g. 4QIsad), its DJD number, its find-site and the column or fragment and line. Besides the biblical manuscripts, the copies of Ben Sira, Tobit, 1 Enoch, Jubilees and Psalm 151 are shown under those books. Not every manuscript is in the dataset — notably the Greek scrolls (such as the Greek Minor Prophets from Naḥal Ḥever) are absent, and the Masada Ben Sira scroll is added separately (see Ben Sira).

Ben Sira

The Wisdom of Yeshua ben Eleazar ben Sira, composed in Hebrew in Jerusalem around 190–180 BCE and translated into Greek by his grandson in Egypt after 132 BCE (his prologue explains the difficulty of rendering Hebrew into Greek). It belongs to the Septuagint and to the Catholic and Orthodox canons (Latin Ecclesiasticus) but not to the Jewish one, although the Talmud and midrash quote it. Its Hebrew text was lost to the West until 1896, when Solomon Schechter, Agnes Lewis and Margaret Gibson identified medieval copies in the Cairo Genizah; ancient Hebrew copies then emerged at Qumran and Masada.

About two-thirds of the Hebrew is now known, from six medieval Genizah manuscripts (A–F, 10th–12th century) and three ancient ones: 2QSir (2Q18; Sir 6:14–15, 20–32), the acrostic of Sir 51:13–20, 30 in the Psalms Scroll 11QPsa (columns 21–22), and the Masada scroll (Mas1h), found by Yigael Yadin in 1964 in a casemate room of the fortress and published in 1965: seven columns with Sir 39:27–44:17, copied in the early 1st century BCE, little more than a century after the author. Its agreement with Genizah manuscript B showed that the medieval copies descend from the ancient Hebrew rather than from a translation back from Greek or Syriac.

Here the book is shown in Brenton's Greek and English. The Hebrew column is the Kahana edition, as transcribed on Hebrew Wikisource and distributed by Sefaria (CC BY-SA): a running text built on the Genizah manuscripts, in which words in [brackets] are Kahana's restorations; chapters with no surviving Hebrew are empty. Kahana numbers the verses in the Hebrew order — in the Greek, two blocks of chapters 30–36 are transposed — so his verses have been matched to Brenton's by content for this site, with his own number shown as “Heb.” where it differs. The scrolls column has the three ancient witnesses; the Masada text is Eric Reymond's transcription from bensira.org. Their placement was made for this site by matching the text; there is no Masoretic text to compare them with, so no variants are marked.

Psalm 151

The Septuagint Psalter ends with a short psalm “outside the number”, in which David recalls tending his father's sheep, his anointing and his victory over Goliath. It belongs to the Greek, Syriac and Ethiopic Bibles but not to the Hebrew one, and was long thought to have been composed in Greek — until the Psalms Scroll from Qumran Cave 11 (11QPsa, published by James Sanders in 1965) turned out to contain a longer Hebrew original in its 28th column, as two poems (151A on David's music and anointing, 151B, broken off, on Goliath). The Greek is a condensed translation of them. The psalm is shown as chapter 151 of Psalms, with the scroll's lines under the Greek verses they correspond to.

Tobit

A Jewish novella of the Eastern diaspora (probably 3rd–2nd century BCE): the pious exile Tobit, blinded in Nineveh, sends his son Tobias to recover money in Media, guided by the angel Raphael in disguise; on the way Tobias marries Sarah and drives off the demon Asmodeus. It is in the Septuagint and the Catholic and Orthodox canons. It survives in two Greek forms — a shorter one (Codices Vaticanus and Alexandrinus, printed by Brenton) and a longer one (Codex Sinaiticus) — and the Qumran copies, four in Aramaic (4Q196–199) and one in Hebrew (4Q200), published by Joseph Fitzmyer in 1995, side with the longer form, which is now generally taken as nearer the original. Their verse placement here follows Fitzmyer's identifications.

1 Enoch

A collection of five works ascribed to Enoch, the seventh from Adam who “walked with God” (Gen 5:24): the Book of the Watchers (ch. 1–36, 3rd century BCE), on the angels who descended to the daughters of men; the Parables (37–71); the Astronomical Book (72–82); the Dream Visions (83–90), with the “Animal Apocalypse” of Israel's history; and the Epistle of Enoch (91–108). It is quoted in the Letter of Jude (1:14–15) and is canonical in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, whose Ge'ez version is the only complete text; Greek survives for about a third. Józef Milik published the Aramaic fragments from Qumran Cave 4 in 1976: eleven copies, covering every part except the Parables, the oldest from around 200 BCE. The English is R. H. Charles's 1917 translation from the Ethiopic (public domain). The Astronomical scrolls (4Q208–211) contain a much longer calendar than the Ethiopic; only their few passages that match chapters 76–82 are placed.

Jubilees

A retelling of Genesis and Exodus 1–14 as revealed to Moses on Sinai by an “angel of the presence”, dated by a calendar of 49-year jubilees and a 364-day solar year (mid-2nd century BCE). Like 1 Enoch it is canonical only in the Ethiopian church, whose Ge'ez version is the only complete text; parts survive in Latin, Syriac and Greek quotations. Fragments of about fifteen Hebrew copies were found at Qumran, more than of most biblical books, and are published in DJD 13 (VanderKam and Milik, 1994) and DJD 23. The English is R. H. Charles's 1917 translation (public domain).

Lexicon and concordance data

Hebrew words carry the analysis of STEPBible's Translators Amalgamated Hebrew OT (Tyndale House, Cambridge): extended Strong's numbers — James Strong's 1890 numbering, subdivided to follow the Brown–Driver–Briggs lexicon (1906) — with morphology from the ETCBC and an abridged BDB for definitions. Samaritan and scroll words take the analysis of the Masoretic word they correspond to, or, where they differ, of the same written form elsewhere in the Masoretic text. Greek words are matched through the Swete Septuagint and the Morpheus parser to STEPBible's Greek lexicon, which draws on Abbott-Smith (1922) and Liddell–Scott–Jones.

† Licensed for non-commercial use only. Full credits and licences: Credits and licences.