62:6 I 5 post watchmen on your walls, O Jerusalem;
they should keep praying all day and all night. 6
You who pray to 7 the Lord, don’t be silent!
62:7 Don’t allow him to rest until he reestablishes Jerusalem, 8
until he makes Jerusalem the pride 9 of the earth.
15:30 Now I urge you, brothers and sisters, 12 through our Lord Jesus Christ and through the love of the Spirit, to join fervently with me in prayer to God on my behalf. 15:31 Pray 13 that I may be rescued from those who are disobedient in Judea and that my ministry in Jerusalem may be acceptable to the saints, 15:32 so that by God’s will I may come to you with joy and be refreshed in your company.
3:1 Therefore, if you have been raised with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.
1 tn Grk “the extraordinary grace of God to you”; the point is that God has given or shown grace to the Corinthians.
2 tn Heb “all the words of the chief adviser whom his master, the king of Assyria, sent to taunt the living God.”
3 tn Heb “and rebuke the words which the Lord your God hears.”
4 tn Heb “and lift up a prayer on behalf of the remnant that is found.”
5 sn The speaker here is probably the prophet.
6 tn Heb “all day and all night continually they do not keep silent.” The following lines suggest that they pray for the Lord’s intervention and restoration of the city.
7 tn Or “invoke”; NIV “call on”; NASB, NRSV “remind.”
8 tn “Jerusalem” is supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons; note the following line.
9 tn Heb “[the object of] praise.”
10 tn Or “constantly.” This term also appears in Luke 22:14 and Acts 26:7.
11 tn Grk “but earnest prayer was being made by the church to God for him.” The order of the clauses has been rearranged to follow English style, and the somewhat awkward passive “prayer was being made” has been changed to the simpler active verb “were praying.” Luke portrays what follows as an answer to prayer.
12 tn Grk “brothers.” See note on the phrase “brothers and sisters” in 1:13.
13 tn Verses 30-31 form one long sentence in the Greek but have been divided into two distinct sentences for clarity in English.
14 tn Both “pray” and “be alert” are participles in the Greek text (“praying…being alert”). Both are probably instrumental, loosely connected with all of the preceding instructions. As such, they are not additional commands to do but instead are the means through which the prior instructions are accomplished.
15 tn Grk “and toward it.”
16 tn To avoid a lengthy, convoluted sentence in English, the Greek sentence was broken up at this point and the verb “pray” was inserted in the English translation to pick up the participle προσευχόμενοι (proseuxomenoi, “praying”) in v. 18.
17 tn Grk “that a word may be given to me in the opening of my mouth.” Here “word” (λόγος, logo") is used in the sense of “message.”
18 tn The infinitive γνωρίσαι (gnwrisai, “to make known”) is functioning epexegetically to further explain what the author means by the preceding phrase “that I may be given the message when I begin to speak.”
19 tn Or “salvation.” Deliverance from prison (i.e., release) is probably what Paul has in view here, although some take this as a reference to his ultimate release from the body, i.e., dying and being with Christ (v. 23).
20 tn Though προσευχόμενοι (proseucomenoi) is an adverbial participle related to the previous imperative, προσκαρτερεῖτε (proskartereite), it is here translated as an independent clause due to requirements of contemporary English style.
21 tn The ἵνα (Jina) clause has been rendered as substantival here, indicating the content of the prayer rather than the purpose for it. These two ideas are very similar and difficult to differentiate in this passage, but the conjunction ἵνα following a verb of praying is generally regarded as giving the content of the prayer.
22 tn Grk “that God may open for us a door of the word to speak the mystery of Christ.” The construction in Greek is somewhat awkward in this clause. The translation attempts to simplify this structure somewhat and yet communicate exactly what Paul is asking for.
23 tn Or “so that we may speak.”
24 tn Or “in prison.”
25 tn BDAG 697 s.v. οἰκονομία 1.b renders the term here as “divine office.”
26 tn See BDAG 828 s.v. πληρόω 3. The idea here seems to be that the apostle wants to “complete the word of God” in that he wants to preach it to every person in the known world (cf. Rom 15:19). See P. T. O’Brien, Colossians, Philemon (WBC), 82.
27 tn Grk “and faithful.” The construction in Greek (as well as Paul’s style) suggests that the saints are identical to the faithful; hence, the καί (kai) is best left untranslated (cf. Eph 1:1). See ExSyn 281-82.
28 tn Grk “brothers,” but the Greek word may be used for “brothers and sisters” or “fellow Christians” as here (cf. BDAG 18 s.v. ἀδελφός 1, where considerable nonbiblical evidence for the plural ἀδελφοί [adelfoi] meaning “brothers and sisters” is cited).
29 tn Or “Grace to you and peace.”
30 tc Most witnesses, including some important ones (א A C F G I [P] 075 Ï it bo), read “and the Lord Jesus Christ” at the end of this verse, no doubt to conform the wording to the typical Pauline salutation. However, excellent and early witnesses (B D K L Ψ 33 81 1175 1505 1739 1881 al sa) lack this phrase. Since the omission is inexplicable as arising from the longer reading (otherwise, these
31 tn Or “the fervent prayer of a righteous person is very powerful”; Grk “is very powerful in its working.”
32 tn Although it is certainly true that Elijah was a “man,” here ἄνθρωπος (anqrwpo") has been translated as “human being” because the emphasis in context is not on Elijah’s masculine gender, but on the common humanity he shared with the author and the readers.
33 tn Grk “he prayed with prayer” (using a Hebrew idiom to show intensity).
34 tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “then” to indicate the implied sequence of events.