Ezekiel 2:7

2:7 You must speak my words to them whether they listen or not, for they are rebellious.

Ezekiel 3:17-18

3:17 “Son of man, I have appointed you a watchman ¹  for the house of Israel. Whenever you hear a word from my mouth, you must give them a warning from me. 3:18 When I say to the wicked, “You will certainly die,” ²  and you do not warn him – you do not speak out to warn the wicked to turn from his wicked deed and wicked lifestyle so that he may live – that wicked person will die for his iniquity, ³  but I will hold you accountable for his death. ⁴ 

Acts 20:20-21

20:20 You know that I did not hold back from proclaiming ⁵  to you anything that would be helpful, ⁶  and from teaching you publicly ⁷  and from house to house, 20:21 testifying ⁸  to both Jews and Greeks about repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus. ⁹ 

Acts 20:26-27

20:26 Therefore I declare ¹⁰  to you today that I am innocent ¹¹  of the blood of you all. ¹²  20:27 For I did not hold back from ¹³  announcing ¹⁴  to you the whole purpose ¹⁵  of God.

Romans 10:9-10

10:9 because if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord ¹⁶  and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10:10 For with the heart one believes and thus has righteousness ¹⁷  and with the mouth one confesses and thus has salvation. ¹⁸ 

Romans 10:1

10:1 Brothers and sisters, ¹⁹  my heart’s desire and prayer to God on behalf of my fellow Israelites ²⁰  is for their salvation.

Romans 1:8

Paul’s Desire to Visit Rome

1:8 First of all, ²¹  I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is proclaimed throughout the whole world.

Revelation 22:17

22:17 And the Spirit and the bride say, “Come!” And let the one who hears say: “Come!” And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who wants it take the water of life free of charge.

¹ tn The literal role of a watchman is described in 2 Sam 18:24; 2 Kgs 9:17.

² sn Even though the infinitive absolute is used to emphasize the warning, the warning is still implicitly conditional, as the following context makes clear.

³ tn Or “in his punishment.” The phrase “in/for [a person’s] iniquity” occurs fourteen times in Ezekiel: here and v. 19; 4:17; 7:13, 16; 18: 17, 18, 19, 20; 24:23; 33:6, 8, 9; 39:23. The Hebrew word for “iniquity” may also mean the “punishment for iniquity.”

⁴ tn Heb “his blood I will seek from your hand.” The expression “seek blood from the hand” is equivalent to requiring the death penalty (2 Sam 4:11-12).

⁵ tn Or “declaring.”

⁶ tn Or “profitable.” BDAG 960 s.v. συμφέρω 2.b.α has “τὰ συμφέροντα what advances your best interests or what is good for you Ac 20:20,” but the broader meaning (s.v. 2, “to be advantageous, help, confer a benefit, be profitable/useful”) is equally possible in this context.

⁷ tn Or “openly.”

⁸ tn BDAG 233 s.v. διαμαρτύρομαι 1 has “testify of, bear witness to (orig. under oath)…of repentance to Judeans and Hellenes Ac 20:21.”

⁹ tc Several mss, including some of the more important ones (Ì⁷⁴ א Α C [D] E 33 36 323 945 1175 1241 1505 1739 pm and a number of versions), read Χριστόν (Criston, “Christ”) at the end of this verse. This word is lacking in B H L P Ψ 614 pm. Although the inclusion is supported by many earlier and better mss, internal evidence is on the side of the omission: In Acts, both “Lord Jesus” and “Lord Jesus Christ” occur, though between 16:31 and the end of the book “Lord Jesus Christ” appears only in 28:31, perhaps as a kind of climactic assertion. Thus, the shorter reading is to be preferred.

¹⁰ tn Or “testify.”

¹¹ tn Grk “clean, pure,” thus “guiltless” (BDAG 489 s.v. καθαρός 3.a).

¹² tn That is, “that if any of you should be lost, I am not responsible” (an idiom). According to L&N 33.223, the meaning of the phrase “that I am innocent of the blood of all of you” is “that if any of you should be lost, I am not responsible.” However, due to the length of this phrase and its familiarity to many modern English readers, the translation was kept closer to formal equivalence in this case. The word “you” is not in the Greek text, but is implied; Paul is addressing the Ephesian congregation (in the person of its elders) in both v. 25 and 27.

¹³ tn Or “did not avoid.” BDAG 1041 s.v. ὑποστέλλω 2.b has “shrink from, avoid implying fear…οὐ γὰρ ὑπεστειλάμην τοῦ μὴ ἀναγγεῖλαι I did not shrink from proclaiming Ac 20:27”; L&N 13.160 has “to hold oneself back from doing something, with the implication of some fearful concern – ‘to hold back from, to shrink from, to avoid’…‘for I have not held back from announcing to you the whole purpose of God’ Ac 20:27.”

¹⁴ tn Or “proclaiming,” “declaring.”

¹⁵ tn Or “plan.”

¹⁶ tn Or “the Lord.” The Greek construction, along with the quotation from Joel 2:32 in v. 13 (in which the same “Lord” seems to be in view) suggests that κύριον (kurion) is to be taken as “the Lord,” that is, Yahweh. Cf. D. B. Wallace, “The Semantics and Exegetical Significance of the Object-Complement Construction in the New Testament,” GTJ 6 (1985): 91-112.

¹⁷ tn Grk “believes to righteousness.”

¹⁸ tn Grk “confesses to salvation.”

¹⁹ tn Grk “brothers.” See note on the phrase “brothers and sisters” in 1:13.

²⁰ tn Grk “on behalf of them”; the referent (Paul’s fellow Israelites) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

²¹ tn Grk “First.” Paul never mentions a second point, so J. B. Phillips translated “I must begin by telling you….”