5:11 On this topic we have much to say 4 and it is difficult to explain, since you have become sluggish 5 in hearing. 5:12 For though you should in fact be teachers by this time, 6 you need someone to teach you the beginning elements of God’s utterances. 7 You have gone back to needing 8 milk, not 9 solid food. 5:13 For everyone who lives on milk is inexperienced in the message of righteousness, because he is an infant. 5:14 But solid food is for the mature, whose perceptions are trained by practice to discern both good and evil.
1 sn There is a wordplay in the Greek text between the verbs “learned” (ἔμαθεν, emaqen) and “suffered” (ἔπαθεν, epaqen).
2 tn Grk “having been designated,” continuing the thought of Heb 5:9.
3 sn The phrase in the order of Melchizedek picks up the quotation from Ps 110:4 in Heb 5:6.
4 tn Grk “concerning which the message for us is great.”
5 tn Or “dull.”
6 tn Grk “because of the time.”
7 tn Grk “the elements of the beginning of the oracles of God.”
8 tn Grk “you have come to have a need for.”
9 tc ‡ Most texts, including some early and important ones (א2 A B* D Ψ 0122 0278 1881 Ï sy Cl), have καί (kai, “and”) immediately preceding οὐ (ou, “not”), but other equally significant witnesses (Ì46 א* B2 C 33 81 1739 lat Or Did) lack the conjunction. As it was a natural tendency for scribes to add a coordinating conjunction, the καί appears to be a motivated reading. On balance, it is probably best to regard the shorter reading as authentic. NA27 has καί in brackets, indicating doubts as to its authenticity.