56:11 The dogs have big appetites;
they are never full. 4
They are shepherds who have no understanding;
they all go their own way,
each one looking for monetary gain. 5
3:11 Her 7 leaders take bribes when they decide legal cases, 8
her priests proclaim rulings for profit,
and her prophets read omens for pay.
Yet they claim to trust 9 the Lord and say,
“The Lord is among us. 10
Disaster will not overtake 11 us!”
16:1 Now I commend to you our sister Phoebe, who is a servant 13 of the church in Cenchrea,
1 tn Heb “look.”
2 sn A quarter shekel of silver would weigh about a tenth of an ounce (about 3 grams).
3 tn Heb “our way.”
4 sn The phrase never full alludes to the greed of the leaders.
5 tn Heb “for his gain from his end.”
6 tn Heb “human lives” or “souls.”
7 sn The pronoun Her refers to Jerusalem (note the previous line).
8 tn Heb “judge for a bribe.”
9 tn Heb “they lean upon” (so KJV, NIV, NRSV); NAB “rely on.”
10 tn Heb “Is not the
11 tn Or “come upon” (so many English versions); NCV “happen to us”; CEV “come to us.”
12 tn Grk “hearts.”
13 tn Or “deaconess.” It is debated whether διάκονος (diakonos) here refers to a specific office within the church. One contextual argument used to support this view is that Phoebe is associated with a particular church, Cenchrea, and as such would therefore be a deacon of that church. In the NT some who are called διάκονος are related to a particular church, yet the scholarly consensus is that such individuals are not deacons, but “servants” or “ministers” (other viable translations for διάκονος). For example, Epaphras is associated with the church in Colossians and is called a διάκονος in Col 1:7, but no contemporary translation regards him as a deacon. In 1 Tim 4:6 Paul calls Timothy a διάκονος; Timothy was associated with the church in Ephesus, but he obviously was not a deacon. In addition, the lexical evidence leans away from this view: Within the NT, the διακον- word group rarely functions with a technical nuance. In any case, the evidence is not compelling either way. The view accepted in the translation above is that Phoebe was a servant of the church, not a deaconess, although this conclusion should be regarded as tentative.
14 tn Grk “knowing.” Because of the length and complexity of the Greek sentence, a new sentence was started here in the translation.
15 tn The present tense here has been translated as a futuristic present (see ExSyn 536, where this verse is listed as an example).
16 tn Grk “before eternal ages.”
17 tn Or “reproof,” “censure.” The Greek word ἐλέγχω (elencw) implies exposing someone’s sin in order to bring correction.
18 tn Grk “speak these things and exhort and rebuke with all authority.”
19 tn Or “let anyone despise you”; or “let anyone disregard you.”
20 tn Or “they have gone the way of Cain.”
21 tn Grk “for wages.”
22 tn The verb ἐκχέω (ekcew) normally means “pour out.” Here, in the passive, it occasionally has a reflexive idea, as BDAG 312 s.v. 3. suggests (with extra-biblical examples).
23 tn Or “in.”
24 tn Grk “and.” See note on “perish” later in this verse.
25 tn The three verbs in this verse are all aorist indicative (“have gone down,” “have abandoned,” “have perished”). Although the first and second could be considered constative or ingressive, the last is almost surely proleptic (referring to the certainty of their future judgment). Although it may seem odd that a proleptic aorist is so casually connected to other aorists with a different syntactical force, it is not unparalleled (cf. Rom 8:30).