Luke 12:31-32

12:31 Instead, pursue ¹  his ²  kingdom, ³  and these things will be given to you as well.

12:32 “Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father is well pleased ⁴  to give you the kingdom.

Job 42:10

42:10 So the Lord ⁵  restored what Job had lost ⁶  after he prayed for his friends, ⁷  and the Lord doubled ⁸  all that had belonged to Job.

Psalms 37:16

37:16 The little bit that a godly man owns is better than

the wealth of many evil men, ⁹ 

Psalms 63:4-5

63:4 For this reason ¹⁰  I will praise you while I live;

in your name I will lift up my hands. ¹¹ 

63:5 As if with choice meat ¹²  you satisfy my soul. ¹³ 

My mouth joyfully praises you, ¹⁴ 

Psalms 84:10-12

84:10 Certainly ¹⁵  spending just one day in your temple courts is better

than spending a thousand elsewhere. ¹⁶ 

I would rather stand at the entrance ¹⁷  to the temple of my God

than live ¹⁸  in the tents of the wicked.

84:11 For the Lord God is our sovereign protector. ¹⁹ 

The Lord bestows favor ²⁰  and honor;

he withholds no good thing from those who have integrity. ²¹ 

84:12 O Lord who rules over all, ²² 

how blessed are those who trust in you! ²³ 

Psalms 119:72

119:72 The law you have revealed is more important to me

than thousands of pieces of gold and silver. ²⁴ 

Psalms 119:103

119:103 Your words are sweeter

in my mouth than honey! ²⁵ 

Psalms 119:111

119:111 I claim your rules as my permanent possession,

for they give me joy. ²⁶ 

Psalms 119:127

119:127 For this reason ²⁷  I love your commands

more than gold, even purest gold.

Psalms 119:162

119:162 I rejoice in your instructions,

like one who finds much plunder. ²⁸ 

Romans 6:21-23

6:21 So what benefit ²⁹  did you then reap ³⁰  from those things that you are now ashamed of? For the end of those things is death. 6:22 But now, freed ³¹  from sin and enslaved to God, you have your benefit ³²  leading to sanctification, and the end is eternal life. 6:23 For the payoff ³³  of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 6:1

The Believer’s Freedom from Sin’s Domination

6:1 What shall we say then? Are we to remain in sin so that grace may increase?

Romans 4:8

4:8 blessed is the one ³⁴  against whom the Lord will never count ³⁵  sin.” ³⁶ 

Romans 6:6

6:6 We know that ³⁷  our old man was crucified with him so that the body of sin would no longer dominate us, ³⁸  so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin.

Hebrews 13:5-6

13:5 Your conduct must be free from the love of money and you must be content with what you have, for he has said, “I will never leave you and I will never abandon you.” ³⁹  13:6 So we can say with confidence, “The Lord is my helper, and ⁴⁰  I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?” ⁴¹ 

Revelation 2:10

2:10 Do not be afraid of the things you are about to suffer. The devil is about to have some of you thrown ⁴²  into prison so you may be tested, ⁴³  and you will experience suffering ⁴⁴  for ten days. Remain faithful even to the point of death, and I will give you the crown that is life itself. ⁴⁵ 

Revelation 2:17

2:17 The one who has an ear had better hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers, ⁴⁶  I will give him some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white ⁴⁷  stone, ⁴⁸  and on that stone will be written a new name that no one can understand ⁴⁹  except the one who receives it.’

Revelation 3:21

3:21 I will grant the one ⁵⁰  who conquers ⁵¹  permission ⁵²  to sit with me on my throne, just as I too conquered ⁵³  and sat down with my Father on his throne.

[12:31]  ¹ tn Grk “seek,” but in the sense of the previous verses.

[12:31]  ² tc Most mss (Ì⁴⁵ A D¹ Q W Θ 070 Ë^1,13 33 Ï lat sy) read τοῦ θεοῦ (tou qeou, “of God”) instead of αὐτοῦ (autou, “his”; found in א B D* L Ψ 579 892 pc co). But such a clarifying reading is suspect. αὐτοῦ is superior on both internal and external grounds. Ì⁷⁵ includes neither and as such would support the translation above since the article alone can often be translated as a possessive pronoun.

[12:31]  ³ sn His (that is, God’s) kingdom is a major theme of Jesus. It is a realm in which Jesus rules and to which those who trust him belong. See Luke 6:20; 11:20; 17:20-21.

[12:32]  ⁴ tn Or perhaps, “your Father chooses.”

[42:10]  ⁵ tn The paragraph begins with the disjunctive vav, “Now as for the Lord, he….”

[42:10]  ⁶ sn The expression here is interesting: “he returned the captivity of Job,” a clause used elsewhere in the Bible of Israel (see e.g., Ps 126). Here it must mean “the fortunes of Job,” i.e., what he had lost. There is a good deal of literature on this; for example, see R. Borger, “Zu sub sb(i)t,” ZAW 25 (1954): 315-16; and E. Baumann, ZAW 6 (1929): 17ff.

[42:10]  ⁷ tn This is a temporal clause, using the infinitive construct with the subject genitive suffix. By this it seems that this act of Job was also something of a prerequisite for restoration – to pray for them.

[42:10]  ⁸ tn The construction uses the verb “and he added” with the word “repeat” (or “twice”).

[37:16]  ⁹ tn Heb “Better [is] a little to the godly one than the wealth of many evil ones.” The following verses explain why this is true. Though a godly individual may seem to have only meager possessions, he always has what he needs and will eventually possess the land. The wicked may prosper for a brief time, but will eventually be destroyed by divine judgment and lose everything.

[63:4]  ¹⁰ tn Or perhaps “then.”

[63:4]  ¹¹ sn I will lift up my hands. Lifting up one’s hands toward God was a gesture of prayer (see Ps 28:2; Lam 2:19) or respect (Ps 119:48).

[63:5]  ¹² tn Heb “like fat and fatness.”

[63:5]  ¹³ tn Or “me.”

[63:5]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “and [with] lips of joy my mouth praises.”

[84:10]  ¹⁵ tn Or “for.”

[84:10]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “better is a day in your courts than a thousand [spent elsewhere].”

[84:10]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “I choose being at the entrance of the house of my God over living in the tents of the wicked.” The verb סָפַף (safaf) appears only here in the OT; it is derived from the noun סַף (saf, “threshold”). Traditionally some have interpreted this as a reference to being a doorkeeper at the temple, though some understand it to mean “lie as a beggar at the entrance to the temple” (see HALOT 765 s.v. ספף).

[84:10]  ¹⁸ tn The verb דּוּר (dur, “to live”) occurs only here in the OT.

[84:11]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “[is] a sun and a shield.” The epithet “sun,” though rarely used of Israel’s God in the OT, was a well-attested royal title in the ancient Near East. For several examples from Ugaritic texts, the Amarna letters, and Assyrian royal inscriptions, see R. B. Chisholm, “An Exegetical and Theological Study of Psalm 18/2 Samuel 22” (Th.D. diss., Dallas Theological Seminary, 1983), 131, n. 2.

[84:11]  ²⁰ tn Or “grace.”

[84:11]  ²¹ tn Heb “he does not withhold good to those walking in integrity.”

[84:12]  ²² tn Traditionally “Lord of hosts.”

[84:12]  ²³ tn Heb “[Oh] the happiness [of] the man [who] trusts in you.” Hebrew literature often assumes and reflects the male-oriented perspective of ancient Israelite society. The principle stated here is certainly applicable to all people, regardless of their gender or age. To facilitate modern application, we translate the gender and age specific “man” with the plural “those.” The individual referred to here is representative of all followers of God, as the use of the plural form in v. 12b indicates.

[119:72]  ²⁴ tn Heb “better to me [is] the law of your mouth than thousands of gold and silver.”

[119:103]  ²⁵ tn Heb “How smooth they are to my palate, your word, more than honey to my mouth.” A few medieval Hebrew mss, as well as several other ancient witnesses, read the plural “your words,” which can then be understood as the subject of the plural verb “they are smooth.”

[119:111]  ²⁶ tn Heb “for the joy of my heart [are] they.”

[119:127]  ²⁷ tn “For this reason” connects logically with the statement made in v. 126. Because the judgment the psalmist fears (see vv. 119-120) is imminent, he remains loyal to God’s law.

[119:162]  ²⁸ tn Heb “like one who finds great plunder.” See Judg 5:30. The image is that of a victorious warrior who finds a large amount of plunder on the field of battle.

[6:21]  ²⁹ tn Grk “fruit.”

[6:21]  ³⁰ tn Grk “have,” in a tense emphasizing their customary condition in the past.

[6:22]  ³¹ tn The two aorist participles translated “freed” and “enslaved” are causal in force; their full force is something like “But now, since you have become freed from sin and since you have become enslaved to God….”

[6:22]  ³² tn Grk “fruit.”

[6:23]  ³³ tn A figurative extension of ὀψώνιον (oywnion), which refers to a soldier’s pay or wages. Here it refers to the end result of an activity, seen as something one receives back in return. In this case the activity is sin, and the translation “payoff” captures this thought. See also L&N 89.42.

[4:8]  ³⁴ tn The word for “man” or “individual” here is ἀνήρ (anhr), which often means “male” or “man (as opposed to woman).” However, as BDAG 79 s.v. 2 says, here it is “equivalent to τὶς someone, a person.”

[4:8]  ³⁵ tn The verb translated “count” here is λογίζομαι (logizomai). It occurs eight times in Rom 4:1-12, including here, each time with the sense of “place on someone’s account.” By itself the word is neutral, but in particular contexts it can take on a positive or negative connotation. The other occurrences of the verb have been translated using a form of the English verb “credit” because they refer to a positive event: the application of righteousness to the individual believer. The use here in v. 8 is negative: the application of sin. A form of the verb “credit” was not used here because of the positive connotations associated with that English word, but it is important to recognize that the same concept is used here as in the other occurrences.

[4:8]  ³⁶ sn A quotation from Ps 32:1-2.

[6:6]  ³⁷ tn Grk “knowing this, that.” Because of the length and complexity of the Greek sentence, a new sentence was started here in the translation.

[6:6]  ³⁸ tn Grk “may be rendered ineffective, inoperative,” or possibly “may be destroyed.” The term καταργέω (katargew) has various nuances. In Rom 7:2 the wife whose husband has died is freed from the law (i.e., the law of marriage no longer has any power over her, in spite of what she may feel). A similar point seems to be made here (note v. 7).

[13:5]  ³⁹ sn A quotation from Deut 31:6, 8.

[13:6]  ⁴⁰ tc Some important mss (א* C* P 0285^vid 33 1175 1739 pc lat) lack καί (kai), but because the omission conforms to the wording of Ps 118:6 (117:6 LXX), it is suspect.

[13:6]  ⁴¹ sn A quotation from Ps 118:6.

[2:10]  ⁴² tn Grk “is about to throw some of you,” but the force is causative in context.

[2:10]  ⁴³ tn Or “tempted.”

[2:10]  ⁴⁴ tn Or “experience persecution,” “will be in distress” (see L&N 22.2).

[2:10]  ⁴⁵ tn Grk “crown of life,” with the genitive “of life” (τῆς ζωῆς, th" zwh") functioning in apposition to “crown” (στέφανον, stefanon): “the crown that consists of life.”

[2:17]  ⁴⁶ tn Or “who is victorious”; traditionally, “who overcomes.” The pendent dative is allowed to stand in the English translation because it is characteristic of the author’s style in Revelation.

[2:17]  ⁴⁷ tn Or “bright.” The Greek term λευκός (leukos) can refer either to the color white (traditional here) or to an object that is bright or shining, either from itself or from an outside source of illumination (L&N 14.50; 79.27).

[2:17]  ⁴⁸ tn On the interpretation of the stone, L&N 2.27 states, “A number of different suggestions have been made as to the reference of ψῆφος in this context. Some scholars believe that the white ψῆφος indicates a vote of acquittal in court. Others contend that it is simply a magical amulet; still others, a token of Roman hospitality; and finally, some have suggested that it may represent a ticket to the gladiatorial games, that is to say, to martyrdom. The context, however, suggests clearly that this is something to be prized and a type of reward for those who have ‘won the victory.’”

[2:17]  ⁴⁹ tn Or “know”; for the meaning “understand” see L&N 32.4.

[3:21]  ⁵⁰ tn Grk “The one who conquers, to him I will grant.”

[3:21]  ⁵¹ tn Or “who is victorious”; traditionally, “who overcomes.”

[3:21]  ⁵² tn Grk “I will give [grant] to him.”

[3:21]  ⁵³ tn Or “have been victorious”; traditionally, “have overcome.”