13:9 “You must watch out for yourselves. You will be handed over 2 to councils 3 and beaten in the synagogues. 4 You will stand before governors and kings 5 because of me, as a witness to them.
7:15 “Watch out for false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are voracious wolves. 7
21:34 “But be on your guard 11 so that your hearts are not weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life, and that day close down upon you suddenly like a trap. 12
1 tn Or “Be on guard.”
2 tn Grk “They will hand you over.” “They” is an indefinite plural, referring to people in general. The parallel in Matt 10:17 makes this explicit.
3 sn Councils in this context refers to local judicial bodies attached to the Jewish synagogue. This group would be responsible for meting out justice and discipline within the Jewish community.
4 sn See the note on synagogue in 1:21.
5 sn These statements look at persecution both from a Jewish context as the mention of councils and synagogues suggests, and from a Gentile one as the reference to governors and kings suggests. Some fulfillment of Jewish persecution can be seen in Acts.
6 tc The vast majority of witnesses (א A C L W Θ Ψ Ë1,13 Ï lat sy co) have καὶ προσεύχεσθε after ἀγρυπνεῖτε (agrupneite kai proseucesqe, “stay alert and pray”). This may be a motivated reading, influenced by the similar command in Mark 14:38 where προσεύχεσθε is solidly attested, and more generally from the parallel in Luke 21:36 (though δέομαι [deomai, “ask”] is used there). As B. M. Metzger notes, it is a predictable variant that scribes would have been likely to produce independently of each other (TCGNT 95). The words are not found in B D 2427 a c {d} k. Although the external evidence for the shorter reading is slender, it probably better accounts for the longer reading than vice versa.
7 sn Sheep’s clothing…voracious wolves. Jesus uses a metaphor here to point out that these false prophets appear to be one thing, but in reality they are something quite different and dangerous.
8 tn Here δέ (de) has not been translated.
9 tn Or “Be on guard.”
10 tn That is, “I am the Messiah.”
11 tn Grk “watch out for yourselves.”
12 sn Or like a thief, see Luke 12:39-40. The metaphor of a trap is a vivid one. Most modern English translations traditionally place the words “like a trap” at the end of v. 34, completing the metaphor. In the Greek text (and in the NRSV and REB) the words “like a trap” are placed at the beginning of v. 35. This does not affect the meaning.
13 sn These two small copper coins were lepta (sing. “lepton”), the smallest and least valuable coins in circulation in Palestine, worth one-half of a quadrans or 1/128 of a denarius, or about six minutes of an average daily wage. This was next to nothing in value.
14 sn A winnowing fork is a pitchfork-like tool used to toss threshed grain in the air so that the wind blows away the chaff, leaving the grain to fall to the ground. The note of purging is highlighted by the use of imagery involving sifting though threshed grain for the useful kernels.
15 tn Or “granary,” “barn” (referring to a building used to store a farm’s produce rather than a building for housing livestock).
16 sn The image of fire that cannot be extinguished is from the OT: Job 20:26; Isa 34:8-10; 66:24.