6:9 Masters, 4 treat your slaves 5 the same way, 6 giving up the use of threats, 7 because you know that both you and they have the same master in heaven, 8 and there is no favoritism with him.
1 tn Or “without Christ.” Both “Christ” (Greek) and “Messiah” (Hebrew and Aramaic) mean “one who has been anointed.” Because the context refers to ancient Israel’s messianic expectation, “Messiah” was employed in the translation at this point rather than “Christ.”
2 tn Or “covenants of the promise.”
3 tn Grk “be knowing this.” See also 2 Pet 1:20 for a similar phrase: τοῦτο πρῶτον γινώσκοντες (touto prwton ginwskonte").
5 tn Here καί (kai) has not been translated because of differences between Greek and English style.
6 tn Though the Greek text only has αὐτούς (autous, “them”), the antecedent is the slaves of the masters. Therefore, it was translated this way to make it explicit in English.
7 tn Grk “do the same things to them.”
8 tn Grk “giving up the threat.”
9 tn Grk “because of both they and you, the Lord is, in heaven…”
7 tn BDAG 752 s.v. πάλη says, “struggle against…the opponent is introduced by πρός w. the acc.”
8 tn Grk “blood and flesh.”
9 tn BDAG 561 s.v. κοσμοκράτωρ suggests “the rulers of this sinful world” as a gloss.
10 tn BDAG 837 s.v. πνευματικός 3 suggests “the spirit-forces of evil” in Ephesians 6:12.
11 sn The phrase spiritual forces of evil in the heavens serves to emphasize the nature of the forces which oppose believers as well as to indicate the locality from which they originate.