Leviticus 20:26

20:26 You must be holy to me because I, the Lord, am holy, and I have set you apart from the other peoples to be mine.

Exodus 19:5-6

19:5 And now, if you will diligently listen to me ¹  and keep ²  my covenant, then you will be my ³  special possession ⁴  out of all the nations, for all the earth is mine, 19:6 and you will be to me ⁵  a kingdom of priests ⁶  and a holy nation.’ ⁷  These are the words that you will speak to the Israelites.”

Exodus 33:16

33:16 For how will it be known then that I have found favor in your sight, I and your people? Is it not by your going with us, so that we will be distinguished, I and your people, from all the people who are on the face of the earth?” ⁸ 

Numbers 23:9

23:9 For from the top of the rocks I see them; ⁹ 

from the hills I watch them. ¹⁰ 

Indeed, a nation that lives alone,

and it will not be reckoned ¹¹  among the nations.

Deuteronomy 7:6

7:6 For you are a people holy ¹²  to the Lord your God. He ¹³  has chosen you to be his people, prized ¹⁴  above all others on the face of the earth.

Deuteronomy 14:2

14:2 For you are a people holy ¹⁵  to the Lord your God. He ¹⁶  has chosen you to be his people, prized ¹⁷  above all others on the face of the earth.

Deuteronomy 14:1

The Holy and the Profane

14:1 You are children ¹⁸  of the Lord your God. Do not cut yourselves or shave your forehead bald ¹⁹  for the sake of the dead.

Deuteronomy 8:1

The Lord’s Provision in the Desert

8:1 You must keep carefully all these commandments ²⁰  I am giving ²¹  you today so that you may live, increase in number, ²²  and go in and occupy the land that the Lord promised to your ancestors. ²³ 

John 15:19

15:19 If you belonged to the world, ²⁴  the world would love you as its own. ²⁵  However, because you do not belong to the world, ²⁶  but I chose you out of the world, for this reason ²⁷  the world hates you. ²⁸ 

John 15:2

15:2 He takes away ²⁹  every branch that does not bear ³⁰  fruit in me. He ³¹  prunes ³²  every branch that bears ³³  fruit so that it will bear more fruit.

Colossians 1:17

1:17 He himself is before all things and all things are held together ³⁴  in him.

Colossians 1:1

Salutation

1:1 From Paul, ³⁵  an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother,

Colossians 2:9

2:9 For in him all the fullness of deity lives ³⁶  in bodily form,

[19:5]  ¹ tn Heb “listen to my voice.” The construction uses the imperfect tense in the conditional clause, preceded by the infinitive absolute from the same verb. The idiom “listen to the voice of” implies obedience, not just mental awareness of sound.

[19:5]  ² tn The verb is a perfect tense with vav (ו) consecutive; it continues the idea in the protasis of the sentence: “and [if you will] keep.”

[19:5]  ³ tn The lamed preposition expresses possession here: “to me” means “my.”

[19:5]  ⁴ tn The noun is סְגֻלָּה (sÿgullah), which means a special possession. Israel was to be God’s special possession, but the prophets will later narrow it to the faithful remnant. All the nations belong to God, but Israel was to stand in a place of special privilege and enormous responsibility. See Deut 7:6; 14:2; 26:18; Ps 135:4; and Mal 3:17. See M. Greenburg, “Hebrew sÿgulla: Akkadian sikiltu,” JAOS 71 (1951): 172ff.

[19:6]  ⁵ tn Or “for me” (NIV, NRSV), or, if the lamed (ל) preposition has a possessive use, “my kingdom” (so NCV).

[19:6]  ⁶ tn The construction “a kingdom of priests” means that the kingdom is made up of priests. W. C. Kaiser (“Exodus,” EBC 2:417) offers four possible renderings of the expression: 1) apposition, viz., “kings, that is, priests; 2) as a construct with a genitive of specification, “royal priesthood”; 3) as a construct with the genitive being the attribute, “priestly kingdom”; and 4) reading with an unexpressed “and” – “kings and priests.” He takes the latter view that they were to be kings and priests. (Other references are R. B. Y. Scott, “A Kingdom of Priests (Exodus xix. 6),” OTS 8 [1950]: 213-19; William L. Moran, “A Kingdom of Priests,” The Bible in Current Catholic Thought, 7-20). However, due to the parallelism of the next description which uses an adjective, this is probably a construct relationship. This kingdom of God will be composed of a priestly people. All the Israelites would be living wholly in God’s service and enjoying the right of access to him. And, as priests, they would have the duty of representing God to the nations, following what they perceived to be the duties of priests – proclaiming God’s word, interceding for people, and making provision for people to find God through atonement (see Deut 33:9,10).

[19:6]  ⁷ tn They are also to be “a holy nation.” They are to be a nation separate and distinct from the rest of the nations. Here is another aspect of their duty. It was one thing to be God’s special possession, but to be that they had to be priestly and holy. The duties of the covenant will specify what it would mean to be a holy nation. In short, they had to keep themselves free from everything that characterized pagan people (S. R. Driver, Exodus, 171). So it is a bilateral covenant: they received special privileges but they must provide special services by the special discipline. See also H. Kruse, “Exodus 19:5 and the Mission of Israel,” North East Asian Journal of Theology 24/25 (1980): 239-42.

[33:16]  ⁸ sn See W. Brueggemann, “The Crisis and Promise of Presence in Israel,” HBT 1 (1979): 47-86; and N. M. Waldman, “God’s Ways – A Comparative Note,” JQR 70 (1979): 67-70.

[23:9]  ⁹ tn Heb “him,” but here it refers to the Israelites (Israel).

[23:9]  ¹⁰ sn Balaam reports his observation of the nation of Israel spread out below him in the valley. Based on that vision, and the Lord’s word, he announces the uniqueness of Israel – they are not just like one of the other nations. He was correct, of course; they were the only people linked with the living God by covenant.

[23:9]  ¹¹ tn The verb could also be taken as a reflexive – Israel does not consider itself as among the nations, meaning, they consider themselves to be unique.

[7:6]  ¹² tn That is, “set apart.”

[7:6]  ¹³ tn Heb “the Lord your God.” The pronoun has been used in the translation for stylistic reasons to avoid redundancy.

[7:6]  ¹⁴ tn Or “treasured” (so NIV, NRSV); NLT “his own special treasure.” The Hebrew term סְגֻלָּה (sÿgullah) describes Israel as God’s choice people, those whom he elected and who are most precious to him (cf. Exod 19:4-6; Deut 14:2; 26:18; 1 Chr 29:3; Ps 135:4; Eccl 2:8 Mal 3:17). See E. Carpenter, NIDOTTE 3:224.

[14:2]  ¹⁵ tn Or “set apart.”

[14:2]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “The Lord.” The pronoun has been used in the translation for stylistic reasons to avoid redundancy.

[14:2]  ¹⁷ tn Or “treasured.” The Hebrew term סְגֻלָּה (sÿgullah) describes Israel as God’s choice people, those whom he elected and who are most precious to him (cf. Exod 19:4-6; Deut 14:2; 26:18; 1 Chr 29:3; Ps 135:4; Eccl 2:8 Mal 3:17). See E. Carpenter, NIDOTTE 3:224.

[14:1]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “sons” (so NASB); TEV, NLT “people.”

[14:1]  ¹⁹ sn Do not cut yourselves or shave your forehead bald. These were pagan practices associated with mourning the dead; they were not be imitated by God’s people (though they frequently were; cf. 1 Kgs 18:28; Jer 16:6; 41:5; 47:5; Hos 7:14 [LXX]; Mic 5:1). For other warnings against such practices see Lev 21:5; Jer 16:5.

[8:1]  ²⁰ tn The singular term (מִצְוָה, mitsvah) includes the whole corpus of covenant stipulations, certainly the book of Deuteronomy at least (cf. Deut 5:28; 6:1, 25; 7:11; 11:8, 22; 15:5; 17:20; 19:9; 27:1; 30:11; 31:5). The plural (מִצְוֹת, mitsot) refers to individual stipulations (as in vv. 2, 6).

[8:1]  ²¹ tn Heb “commanding” (so NASB). For stylistic reasons, to avoid redundancy, “giving” has been used in the translation (likewise in v. 11).

[8:1]  ²² tn Heb “multiply” (so KJV, NASB, NLT); NIV, NRSV “increase.”

[8:1]  ²³ tn Heb “fathers” (also in vv. 16, 18).

[15:19]  ²⁴ tn Grk “if you were of the world.”

[15:19]  ²⁵ tn The words “you as” are not in the original but are supplied for clarity.

[15:19]  ²⁶ tn Grk “because you are not of the world.”

[15:19]  ²⁷ tn Or “world, therefore.”

[15:19]  ²⁸ sn I chose you out of the world…the world hates you. Two themes are brought together here. In 8:23 Jesus had distinguished himself from the world in addressing his Jewish opponents: “You are from below, I am from above; you are of this world, I am not of this world.” In 15:16 Jesus told the disciples “You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you.” Now Jesus has united these two ideas as he informs the disciples that he has chosen them out of the world. While the disciples will still be “in” the world after Jesus has departed, they will not belong to it, and Jesus prays later in John 17:15-16 to the Father, “I do not ask you to take them out of the world, but to keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.” The same theme also occurs in 1 John 4:5-6: “They are from the world; therefore they speak as from the world, and the world listens to them. We are from God; he who knows God listens to us; he who is not from God does not listen to us.” Thus the basic reason why the world hates the disciples (as it hated Jesus before them) is because they are not of the world. They are born from above, and are not of the world. For this reason the world hates them.

[15:2]  ²⁹ tn Or “He cuts off.”

[15:2]  ³⁰ tn Or “does not yield.”

[15:2]  ³¹ tn Grk “And he”; the conjunction καί (kai, “and”) has been omitted in the translation in keeping with the tendency in contemporary English style to use shorter sentences.

[15:2]  ³² tn Or “trims”; Grk “cleanses” (a wordplay with “clean” in v. 3). Καθαίρει (kaqairei) is not the word one would have expected here, but it provides the transition from the vine imagery to the disciples – there is a wordplay (not reproducible in English) between αἴρει (airei) and καθαίρει in this verse. While the purpose of the Father in cleansing his people is clear, the precise means by which he does so is not immediately obvious. This will become clearer, however, in the following verse.

[15:2]  ³³ tn Or “that yields.”

[1:17]  ³⁴ tn BDAG 973 s.v. συνίστημι B.3 suggests “continue, endure, exist, hold together” here.

[1:1]  ³⁵ tn Grk “Paul.” The word “from” is not in the Greek text, but has been supplied to indicate the sender of the letter.

[2:9]  ³⁶ sn In him all the fullness of deity lives. The present tense in this verse (“lives”) is significant. Again, as was stated in the note on 1:19, this is not a temporary dwelling, but a permanent one. Paul’s point is polemical against the idea that the fullness of God dwells anywhere else, as the Gnostics believed, except in Christ alone. At the incarnation, the second person of the Trinity assumed humanity, and is forever the God-man.