Isaiah 49:4

49:4 But I thought, ¹  “I have worked in vain;

I have expended my energy for absolutely nothing.” ² 

But the Lord will vindicate me;

my God will reward me. ³ 

Jeremiah 8:8

8:8 How can you say, “We are wise!

We have the law of the Lord”?

The truth is, ⁴  those who teach it ⁵  have used their writings

to make it say what it does not really mean. ⁶ 

Jeremiah 8:1

8:1 The Lord says, “When that time comes, ⁷  the bones of the kings of Judah and its leaders, the bones of the priests and prophets and of all the other people who lived in Jerusalem will be dug up from their graves.

Colossians 1:2

1:2 to the saints, the faithful ⁸  brothers and sisters ⁹  in Christ, at Colossae. Grace and peace to you ¹⁰  from God our Father! ¹¹ 

Colossians 1:14

1:14 in whom we have redemption, ¹²  the forgiveness of sins.

Colossians 1:17

1:17 He himself is before all things and all things are held together ¹³  in him.

¹ tn Or “said” (KJV, NASB, NIV, NRSV); NLT “I replied.”

² tn Heb “for nothing and emptiness.” Synonyms are combined to emphasize the common idea.

³ tn Heb “But my justice is with the Lord, and my reward [or “wage”] with my God.”

⁴ tn Heb “Surely, behold!”

⁵ tn Heb “the scribes.”

⁶ tn Heb “The lying pen of the scribes have made [it] into a lie.” The translation is an attempt to make the most common interpretation of this passage understandable for the average reader. This is, however, a difficult passage whose interpretation is greatly debated and whose syntax is capable of other interpretations. The interpretation of the NJPS, “Assuredly, for naught has the pen labored, for naught the scribes,” surely deserves consideration within the context; i.e. it hasn’t done any good for the scribes to produce a reliable copy of the law, which the people have refused to follow. That interpretation has the advantage of explaining the absence of an object for the verb “make” or “labored” but creates a very unbalanced poetic couplet.

⁷ tn Heb “At that time.”

⁸ 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.

⁹ 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).

¹⁰ tn Or “Grace to you and peace.”

¹¹ 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.

¹² tc διὰ τοῦ αἵματος αὐτοῦ (dia tou {aimato" autou, “through his blood”) is read at this juncture by several minuscule mss (614 630 1505 2464 al) as well as a few, mostly secondary, versional and patristic witnesses. But the reading was prompted by the parallel in Eph 1:7 where the wording is solid. If these words had been in the original of Colossians, why would scribes omit them here but not in Eph 1:7? Further, the testimony on behalf of the shorter reading is quite overwhelming: {א A B C D F G Ψ 075 0150 6 33 1739 1881 Ï latt co as well as several other versions and fathers}. The conviction that “through his blood” is not authentic in Col 1:14 is as strong as the conviction that these words are authentic in Eph 1:7.

¹³ tn BDAG 973 s.v. συνίστημι B.3 suggests “continue, endure, exist, hold together” here.