13:6 Wail, for the Lord’s day of judgment 1 is near;
it comes with all the destructive power of the sovereign judge. 2
13:9 Look, the Lord’s day of judgment 3 is coming;
it is a day of cruelty and savage, raging anger, 4
destroying 5 the earth 6
and annihilating its sinners.
46:10 But that day belongs to the Lord God who rules over all. 7
It is the day when he will pay back his enemies. 8
His sword will devour them until its appetite is satisfied!
It will drink their blood until it is full! 9
For the Lord God who rules over all 10 will offer them up as a sacrifice
in the land of the north by the Euphrates River.
5:18 Woe 11 to those who wish for the day of the Lord!
Why do you want the Lord’s day of judgment to come?
It will bring darkness, not light.
4:1 (3:19) 13 “For indeed the day 14 is coming, burning like a furnace, and all the arrogant evildoers will be chaff. The coming day will burn them up,” says the Lord who rules over all. “It 15 will not leave even a root or branch.
1:1 From Paul, 19 an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, 1:2 to the saints, the faithful 20 brothers and sisters 21 in Christ, at Colossae. Grace and peace to you 22 from God our Father! 23
1 tn Heb “the day of the Lord” (so KJV, NAB).
2 tn Heb “like destruction from the sovereign judge it comes.” The comparative preposition (כְּ, kÿ) has here the rhetorical nuance, “in every way like.” The point is that the destruction unleashed will have all the earmarks of divine judgment. One could paraphrase, “it comes as only destructive divine judgment can.” On this use of the preposition in general, see GKC 376 §118.x.
3 tn Heb “the day of the Lord.”
4 tn Heb “[with] cruelty, and fury, and rage of anger.” Three synonyms for “anger” are piled up at the end of the line to emphasize the extraordinary degree of divine anger that will be exhibited in this judgment.
5 tn Heb “making desolate.”
6 tn Or “land” (KJV, NAB, NASB, NIV, NLT).
7 tn Heb “the Lord Yahweh of armies.” See the study note at 2:19 for the translation and significance of this title for God.
8 sn Most commentators think that this is a reference to the
9 tn Or more paraphrastically, “he will kill them/ until he has exacted full vengeance”; Heb “The sword will eat and be sated; it will drink its fill of their blood.”
10 tn Heb “the Lord Yahweh of armies.” See the study note at 2:19 for the translation and significance of this title for God.
11 tn The term הוֹי (hoy, “woe”) was used when mourning the dead (see the note on the word “dead” in 5:16). The prophet here either engages in role playing and mourns the death of the nation in advance or sarcastically taunts those who hold to this misplaced belief.
12 sn I will send you Elijah the prophet. In light of the ascension of Elijah to heaven without dying (2 Kgs 2:11), Judaism has always awaited his return as an aspect of the messianic age (see, e.g., John 1:19-28). Jesus identified John the Baptist as Elijah, because he came in the “spirit and power” of his prototype Elijah (Matt 11:14; 17:1-13; Mark 9:2-13; Luke 9:28-36).
13 sn Beginning with 4:1, the verse numbers through 4:6 in the English Bible differ from the verse numbers in the Hebrew text (BHS), with 4:1 ET = 3:19 HT, 4:2 ET = 3:20 HT, etc., through 4:6 ET = 3:24 HT. Thus the book of Malachi in the Hebrew Bible has only three chapters, with 24 verses in ch. 3.
14 sn This day is the well-known “day of the
15 tn Heb “so that it” (so NASB, NRSV). For stylistic reasons a new sentence was begun here in the translation.
16 tn Col 1:3-8 form one long sentence in the Greek text and have been divided at the end of v. 4 and v. 6 and within v. 6 for clarity, in keeping with the tendency in contemporary English toward shorter sentences. Thus the phrase “Your faith and love have arisen from the hope” is literally “because of the hope.” The perfect tense “have arisen” was chosen in the English to reflect the fact that the recipients of the letter had acquired this hope at conversion in the past, but that it still remains and motivates them to trust in Christ and to love one another.
17 tn BDAG 113 s.v. ἀπόκειμαι 2 renders ἀποκειμένην (apokeimenhn) with the expression “reserved” in this verse.
18 tn The term “the gospel” (τοῦ εὐαγγελίου, tou euangeliou) is in apposition to “the word of truth” (τῷ λόγῳ τῆς ἀληθείας, tw logw th" alhqeia") as indicated in the translation.
19 tn Grk “Paul.” The word “from” is not in the Greek text, but has been supplied to indicate the sender of the letter.
20 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.
21 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).
22 tn Or “Grace to you and peace.”
23 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