4:6 I have applied these things to myself and Apollos because of you, brothers and sisters, 1 so that through us you may learn “not to go beyond what is written,” so that none of you will be puffed up in favor of the one against the other. 4:7 For who concedes you any superiority? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you received it, why do you boast as though you did not? 4:8 Already you are satisfied! Already you are rich! You have become kings without us! I wish you had become kings so that we could reign with you!
16:18 Pride 2 goes 3 before destruction,
and a haughty spirit before a fall. 4
28:14 Blessed is the one who is always cautious, 5
but whoever hardens his heart 6 will fall into evil.
1 tn Grk “brothers.” See note on the phrase “brothers and sisters” in 1:10.
2 sn The two lines of this proverb are synonymous parallelism, and so there are parasynonyms. “Pride” is paired with “haughty spirit” (“spirit” being a genitive of specification); and “destruction” is matched with “a tottering, falling.”
3 tn Heb “[is] before destruction.”
4 sn Many proverbs have been written in a similar way to warn against the inevitable disintegration and downfall of pride. W. McKane records an Arabic proverb: “The nose is in the heavens, the seat is in the mire” (Proverbs [OTL], 490).
3 tn Most commentators (and some English versions, e.g., NIV) assume that the participle מְפַחֵד (mÿfakhed, “fears”) means “fears the
4 sn The one who “hardens his heart” in this context is the person who refuses to fear sin and its consequences. The image of the “hard heart” is one of a stubborn will, unyielding and unbending (cf. NCV, TEV, NLT). This individual will fall into sin.
4 tn Grk “answering, Peter said to him.” This is somewhat redundant and has been simplified in the translation. Here δέ (de) has not been translated.
5 tn Grk “Truly (ἀμήν, amhn), I say to you.”
6 tn Here καί (kai) has not been translated.
7 tn Grk “well!”, an adverb used to affirm a statement. It means “very well,” “you are correct.”
8 tn Grk “and have become rich.” The semantic domains of the two terms for wealth here, πλούσιος (plousios, adjective) and πλουτέω (ploutew, verb) overlap considerably, but are given slightly different English translations for stylistic reasons.
9 tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “but” to indicate the contrast present in this context.
10 tn All the terms in this series are preceded by καί (kai) in the Greek text, but contemporary English generally uses connectives only between the last two items in such a series.
9 tn Grk “I counsel you to buy.”
10 tn Grk “rich, and.” Because of the length and complexity of the Greek sentence, a new sentence was started here in the translation, repeating the words “Buy from me” to make the connection clear for the English reader.
11 tn Grk “the shame of the nakedness of you,” which has been translated as an attributed genitive like καινότητι ζωῆς (kainothti zwh") in Rom 6:4 (ExSyn 89-90).
12 sn The city of Laodicea had a famous medical school and exported a powder (called a “Phrygian powder”) that was widely used as an eye salve. It was applied to the eyes in the form of a paste the consistency of dough (the Greek term for the salve here, κολλούριον, kollourion [Latin collyrium], is a diminutive form of the word for a long roll of bread).