3:14 I hope to come to you soon, but I am writing these instructions 4 to you
1:18 I put this charge 5 before you, Timothy my child, in keeping with the prophecies once spoken about you, 6 in order that with such encouragement 7 you may fight the good fight.
1 tn Grk “in you.”
2 tn Grk “which was given to you through prophecy.” Here as in 2:15 the preposition “through” denotes not “means” but accompanying circumstances: “accompanied by prophecy.”
3 tn Grk “with the imposition of the hands of the presbytery” (i.e., the council of elders).
4 tn Grk “these things.”
7 sn This charge refers to the task Paul described to Timothy in vv. 3-7 above.
8 sn The prophecies once spoken about you were apparently spoken at Timothy’s ordination (cf. 1 Tim 4:14) and perhaps spoke of what God would do through him. Thus they can encourage him in his work, as the next clause says.
9 tn Grk “that by them you might fight…” (a reference to the prophecies which can encourage him in his work).
10 tc ‡ Most witnesses, some of them important (א2 A D H 1881 Ï lat sy bo), have σοι (soi, “you”) after παραγγέλλω (parangellw, “I charge [you]”), a predictable variant because the personal pronoun is demanded by the sense of the passage (and was added in the translation because of English requirements). Hence, the omission is the harder reading, and the addition of σοι is one of clarification. Further, the shorter reading is found in several important witnesses, such as א* F G Ψ 6 33 1739 pc. Thus, both internally and externally the shorter reading is preferred. NA 27 places σοι in brackets, indicating some doubts as to its authenticity.
11 tn Grk “testified the good confession.”