“Come now, and let us reason together,” says Yahweh: “Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. Though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.
⛓ Read Isaiah 1 forward — the whole chapter and its afterlife →Where this passage surfaces again, sorted by the strength of the link. Each kind of reuse — formal quotation, deliberate allusion, faint echo, figural pattern — carries its own mark. Follow any reference to read it in place.
Allusion1
A deliberate verbal borrowing without a citation formula.
"Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow" — the prophetic image of sin-cleansing producing whiteness underlies robes "made white" through the Lamb's blood (cleansing-unto-whiteness). Coheres with the purification motif; medium volume since John supplies the paradoxical agent (blood) absent from Isaiah.
Medium confidenceEcho2
A fainter, low-volume reuse, carried by recurrence or thematic coherence.
'Christ came to save sinners' resonates with the prophetic invitation in which scarlet sins are made white as snow, the OT promise of cleansing for the guilty. Paul as foremost sinner receives this promised pardon. A contested thematic echo of prophetic forgiveness.
Low confidence'Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow' offers the prophetic promise of divine cleansing of sin that underlies the forgiveness pronounced here. Thematic only; low volume.
Low confidence