Hosea 2:7

2:7 Then she will pursue her lovers, but she will not catch ¹  them;

she will seek them, but she will not find them. ² 

Then she will say,

“I will go back ³  to my husband, ⁴ 

because I was better off then than I am now.” ⁵ 

Isaiah 54:5

54:5 For your husband is the one who made you –

the Lord who commands armies is his name.

He is your protector, ⁶  the Holy One of Israel. ⁷ 

He is called “God of the entire earth.”

Jeremiah 3:14

3:14 “Come back to me, my wayward sons,” says the Lord, “for I am your true master. ⁸  If you do, ⁹  I will take one of you from each town and two of you from each family group, and I will bring you back to Zion.

John 3:29

3:29 The one who has the bride is the bridegroom. The friend of the bridegroom, who stands by and listens for him, rejoices greatly ¹⁰  when he hears the bridegroom’s voice. This then is my joy, and it is complete. ¹¹ 

John 3:2

3:2 came to Jesus ¹²  at night ¹³  and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the miraculous signs ¹⁴  that you do unless God is with him.”

Colossians 1:2

1:2 to the saints, the faithful ¹⁵  brothers and sisters ¹⁶  in Christ, at Colossae. Grace and peace to you ¹⁷  from God our Father! ¹⁸ 

Ephesians 5:25-27

5:25 Husbands, love your ¹⁹  wives just as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her 5:26 to sanctify her by cleansing her ²⁰  with the washing of the water by the word, 5:27 so that he ²¹  may present the church to himself as glorious – not having a stain or wrinkle, or any such blemish, but holy and blameless. ²² 

Revelation 19:7

19:7 Let us rejoice ²³  and exult

and give him glory,

because the wedding celebration of the Lamb has come,

and his bride has made herself ready.

¹ tn Heb “overtake” (so KJV, NAB, NASB, NRSV); NLT “be able to catch up with.”

² tn In the Hebrew text the accusative direct object pronoun אֹתָם (’otam, “them”) is omitted/elided for balanced poetic parallelism. The LXX supplies αὐτους (autous, “them”); but it is not necessary to emend the MT because this is a poetic literary convention rather than a textual problem.

³ tn Heb “I will go and return” (so NRSV). The two verbs joined with vav form a verbal hendiadys. Normally, the first verb functions adverbially and the second retains its full verbal sense (GKC 386-87 §120.d, h). The Hebrew phrase אֵלְכָה וְאָשׁוּבָה (’elkhah vÿ’ashuvah, “I will go and I will return”) connotes, “I will return again.” As cohortatives, both verbs emphasize the resolution of the speaker.

⁴ tn Heb “to my man, the first.” Many English translations (e.g., KJV, NAB, NRSV, TEV) take this as “my first husband,” although this implies that there was more than one husband involved. The text refers to multiple lovers, but these were not necessarily husbands.

⁵ tn Or “because it was better for me then than now” (cf. NCV).

⁶ tn Or “redeemer.” See the note at 41:14.

⁷ sn See the note on the phrase “the Holy One of Israel” in 1:4.

⁸ tn Or “I am your true husband.”

⁹ tn The words, “If you do” are not in the text but are implicit in the connection of the Hebrew verb with the preceding.

¹⁰ tn Grk “rejoices with joy” (an idiom).

¹¹ tn Grk “Therefore this my joy is fulfilled.”

¹² tn Grk “him”; the referent (Jesus) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

¹³ tn Or “during the night.”

¹⁴ sn The reference to signs (σημεῖα, shmeia) forms a link with John 2:23-25. Those people in Jerusalem believed in Jesus because of the signs he had performed. Nicodemus had apparently seen them too. But for Nicodemus all the signs meant is that Jesus was a great teacher sent from God. His approach to Jesus was well-intentioned but theologically inadequate; he had failed to grasp the messianic implications of the miraculous signs.

¹⁵ 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.

¹⁶ 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).

¹⁷ tn Or “Grace to you and peace.”

¹⁸ 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 mss would surely have deleted the phrase in the rest of the corpus Paulinum), it is surely authentic.

¹⁹ tn The Greek article has been translated as a possessive pronoun (ExSyn 215).

²⁰ tn The direct object “her” is implied, but not found in the Greek text. It has been supplied in the English translation to clarify the sense of the passage.

²¹ tn The use of the pronoun αὐτός (autos) is intensive and focuses attention on Christ as the one who has made the church glorious.

²² tn Grk “but in order that it may be holy and blameless.”

²³ tn This verb and the next two verbs are hortatory subjunctives (giving exhortations).