12:1 Therefore I exhort you, brothers and sisters, 5 by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a sacrifice – alive, holy, and pleasing to God 6 – which is your reasonable service.
5:12 So then, just as sin entered the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all people 7 because 8 all sinned – 5:13 for before the law was given, 9 sin was in the world, but there is no accounting for sin 10 when there is no law.
13:17 Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they keep watch over your souls and will give an account for their work. 11 Let them do this 12 with joy and not with complaints, for this would be no advantage for you.
1 tn Or “Pay attention!” Grk “Behold.”
2 tn Grk “And the Lord said.” Here καί (kai) has not been translated because of differences between Greek and English style.
3 tn Or “administrator,” “steward” (L&N 37.39).
4 tn This term, θεραπεία (qerapeia), describes the group of servants working in a particular household (L&N 46.6).
5 tn Grk “brothers.” See note on the phrase “brothers and sisters” in 1:13.
6 tn The participle and two adjectives “alive, holy, and pleasing to God” are taken as predicates in relation to “sacrifice,” making the exhortation more emphatic. See ExSyn 618-19.
7 tn Here ἀνθρώπους (anqrwpou") has been translated as a generic (“people”) since both men and women are clearly intended in this context.
8 tn The translation of the phrase ἐφ᾿ ᾧ (ef Jw) has been heavily debated. For a discussion of all the possibilities, see C. E. B. Cranfield, “On Some of the Problems in the Interpretation of Romans 5.12,” SJT 22 (1969): 324-41. Only a few of the major options can be mentioned here: (1) the phrase can be taken as a relative clause in which the pronoun refers to Adam, “death spread to all people in whom [Adam] all sinned.” (2) The phrase can be taken with consecutive (resultative) force, meaning “death spread to all people with the result that all sinned.” (3) Others take the phrase as causal in force: “death spread to all people because all sinned.”
9 tn Grk “for before the law.”
10 tn Or “sin is not reckoned.”
11 tn Or “as ones who will give an account”; Grk “as giving an account.”
12 tn Grk “that they may do this.”