6:7 Will the Lord accept a thousand rams,
or ten thousand streams of olive oil?
Should I give him my firstborn child as payment for my rebellion,
my offspring – my own flesh and blood – for my sin? 8
6:8 He has told you, O man, what is good,
and what the Lord really wants from you: 9
He wants you to 10 promote 11 justice, to be faithful, 12
and to live obediently before 13 your God.
19:16 Now 14 someone came up to him and said, “Teacher, what good thing must I do to gain eternal life?”
10:25 Now 15 an expert in religious law 16 stood up to test Jesus, 17 saying, “Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” 18
2:37 Now when they heard this, 19 they were acutely distressed 20 and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “What should we do, brothers?”
1 tn Heb “the
2 tn Heb “I have heard” = “I agree.” For this nuance of the verb see BDB 1034 s.v. שָׁמַע Qal.1.j and compare the usage in Gen 37:27 and Judg 11:17 listed there.
3 tn Heb “all the word which the
4 tn Heb “do according to all the word which.”
5 tn Heb “Whether good or whether evil we will hearken to the voice of the
6 tn Heb “you are erring at the cost of your own lives” (BDB 1073 s.v. תָּעָה Hiph.3 and HALOT 1626 s.v. תָּעָה Hif 4, and cf. BDB 90 s.v. בְּ 3 and see parallels in 1 Kgs 2:23; 2 Sam 23:17 for the nuance of “at the cost of your lives”). This fits the context better than “you are deceiving yourselves” (KBL 1035 s.v. תָּעָה Hif 4). The reading here follows the Qere הִתְעֵיתֶם (hit’etem) rather than the Kethib which has a metathesis of י (yod) and ת (tav), i.e., הִתְעֵתֶים. The Greek text presupposes הֲרֵעֹתֶם (hare’otem, “you have done evil”), but that reading is generally rejected as secondary.
7 tn Heb “According to all which the
8 tn Heb “the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul.” The Hebrew term נֶפֶשׁ (nefesh) is often translated “soul,” but the word usually refers to the whole person; here “the sin of my soul” = “my sin.”
9 sn What the
10 tn Heb “except.” This statement is actually linked with what precedes, “What does he want from you except….”
11 tn Heb “to do,” in the sense of “promote.”
12 tn Heb “to love faithfulness.”
13 tn Heb “to walk humbly [or perhaps, “carefully”] with.”
14 tn Grk “And behold one came.” The Greek word ἰδού (idou) has not been translated because it has no exact English equivalent here, but adds interest and emphasis (BDAG 468 s.v. 1). Here καί (kai) has been translated as “now” to indicate the transition to a new topic.
15 tn Grk “And behold.” Here καί (kai) has been translated as “now” to indicate the transition to a new topic. The Greek word ἰδού (idou) at the beginning of this statement has not been translated because it has no exact English equivalent here, but adds interest and emphasis (BDAG 468 s.v. 1).
16 tn Traditionally, “a lawyer.” This was an expert in the interpretation of the Mosaic law (see also Luke 7:30, where the same term occurs).
17 tn Grk “him”; the referent (Jesus) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
18 sn The combination of inherit with eternal life asks, in effect, “What must I do to be saved?”
19 tn The word “this” is not in the Greek text. Direct objects were often omitted in Greek, but must be supplied for the modern English reader.
20 tn Grk “they were pierced to the heart” (an idiom for acute emotional distress).
21 tn Or “But arise.”
22 tn Literally a passive construction, “it will be told to you.” This has been converted to another form of passive construction in the translation.
23 tn Grk “And bringing them outside, he asked.” The participle προαγαγών (proagagwn) has been translated as a finite verb due to requirements of contemporary English style. Because of the length of the Greek sentence, the conjunction καί (kai) has not been translated here. Instead a new English sentence is begun by supplying the conjunction “then” to indicate the logical sequence.
24 tn The Greek term (δεῖ, dei) is used by Luke to represent divine necessity.