Matthew 9:15

9:15 Jesus said to them, “The wedding guests ¹  cannot mourn while the bridegroom ²  is with them, can they? But the days ³  are coming when the bridegroom will be taken from them, ⁴  and then they will fast.

Matthew 20:21

20:21 He said to her, “What do you want?” She replied, ⁵  “Permit ⁶  these two sons of mine to sit, one at your ⁷  right hand and one at your left, in your kingdom.”

¹ tn Grk “sons of the wedding hall,” an idiom referring to wedding guests, or more specifically friends of the bridegroom present at the wedding celebration (L&N 11.7).

² sn The expression while the bridegroom is with them is an allusion to messianic times (John 3:29; Isa 54:5-6; 62:4-5; 4 Ezra 2:15, 38).

³ tn Grk “days.”

⁴ sn The statement the bridegroom will be taken from them is a veiled allusion by Jesus to his death, which he did not make explicit until the incident at Caesarea Philippi in 16:13ff.

⁵ tn Grk “said to him.”

⁶ tn Grk “Say that.”

⁷ tc A majority of witnesses read σου (sou, “your”) here, perhaps for clarification. At the same time, it is possible that the pronoun dropped out through haplography or was excised because of perceived redundancy (there are two other such pronouns in the verse) by א B. Either way, the translation adds it due to the requirements of English style. NA²⁷ includes σου here.