Translations
F.O.G.MPrimary
F.O.G Message"What you are thinking in your minds will never, ever happen—that thought that says, 'We want to be just like the nations, like all the peoples of other lands, worshiping wood and stone.'"
F.O.GSecondary
The F.O.G"And what rises up in your mind shall never come to pass—the thought that says, 'Let us be like the nations, like the families of the lands, serving wood and stone.'"
KJV
King James VersionAnd that which cometh into your mind shall not be at all, that ye say, We will be as the heathen, as the families of the countries, to serve wood and stone.
BSB
Berean Standard BibleWhen you say, ‘Let us be like the nations, like the peoples of the lands, serving wood and stone,’ what you have in mind will never come to pass.
Footnotes
The phrase 'what rises up in your mind' (ha'olah al-ruchakhem) is literally 'what ascends upon your spirit/breath'—a vivid idiom for an unbidden or deeply harboured thought. The desire to 'be like the nations' echoes Yisra'el's demand for a king in the precise terms of 1 Samuel 8:5, 20 and represents the deepest form of covenant abandonment: trading the unique identity of YHWH's elect people for cultural conformity. YHWH's flat denial is a counter-word of election—He will not allow His people to dissolve into the nations even if they desperately want to. Both translations preserve the emphatic negation; FOG Message doubles the emphasis ('never, ever') to capture the finality.
