Matthew 3:15

3:15 So Jesus replied ¹  to him, “Let it happen now, ²  for it is right for us to fulfill all righteousness.” Then John ³  yielded ⁴  to him.

Matthew 5:17

Fulfillment of the Law and Prophets

5:17 “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have not come to abolish these things but to fulfill them. ⁵ 

Luke 2:21-27

2:21 At ⁶  the end of eight days, when he was circumcised, he was named Jesus, the name given by the angel ⁷  before he was conceived in the womb.

Jesus’ Presentation at the Temple

2:22 Now ⁸  when the time came for their ⁹  purification according to the law of Moses, Joseph and Mary ¹⁰  brought Jesus ¹¹  up to Jerusalem ¹²  to present him to the Lord 2:23 (just as it is written in the law of the Lord, “Every firstborn male ¹³  will be set apart to the Lord” ¹⁴ ), 2:24 and to offer a sacrifice according to what is specified in the law of the Lord, a pair of doves ¹⁵  or two young pigeons. ¹⁶ 

The Prophecy of Simeon

2:25 Now ¹⁷  there was a man in Jerusalem ¹⁸  named Simeon who was righteous ¹⁹  and devout, looking for the restoration ²⁰  of Israel, and the Holy Spirit ²¹  was upon him. 2:26 It ²²  had been revealed ²³  to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not die ²⁴  before ²⁵  he had seen the Lord’s Christ. ²⁶  2:27 So ²⁷  Simeon, ²⁸  directed by the Spirit, ²⁹  came into the temple courts, ³⁰  and when the parents brought in the child Jesus to do for him what was customary according to the law, ³¹ 

Romans 15:8

15:8 For I tell you that Christ has become a servant of the circumcised ³²  on behalf of God’s truth to confirm the promises made to the fathers, ³³ 

Colossians 2:14

2:14 He has destroyed ³⁴  what was against us, a certificate of indebtedness ³⁵  expressed in decrees opposed to us. He has taken it away by nailing it to the cross.

¹ tn Grk “but Jesus, answering, said.” This construction with passive participle and finite verb is pleonastic (redundant) and has been simplified in the translation to “replied to him.”

² tn Grk “Permit now.”

³ tn Grk “he”; the referent (John the Baptist) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

⁴ tn Or “permitted him.”

⁵ tn Grk “not come to abolish but to fulfill.” Direct objects (“these things,” “them”) were frequently omitted in Greek when clear from the context, but have been supplied here to conform to contemporary English style.

⁶ tn Grk “And when eight days were completed.” Here καί (kai) has not been translated because of differences between Greek and English style.

⁷ sn Jesus’ parents obeyed the angel as Zechariah and Elizabeth had (1:57-66). These events are taking place very much under God’s direction.

⁸ tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “now” to indicate the transition to a new topic.

⁹ tc The translation follows most mss, including early and important ones ({א A B L}). Some copyists, aware that the purification law applied to women only, produced mss ({76 it^pt vg} [though the Latin word eius could be either masculine or feminine]) that read “her purification.” But the extant evidence for an unambiguous “her” is shut up to one late minuscule ({codex 76}) and a couple of patristic citations of dubious worth ({Pseudo-Athanasius} whose date is unknown, and the {Catenae in euangelia Lucae et Joannis}, edited by J. A. Cramer. The Catenae is a work of collected patristic sayings whose exact source is unknown [thus, it could come from a period covering hundreds of years]). A few other witnesses (D pc lat) read “his purification.” The KJV has “her purification,” following Beza’s Greek text (essentially a revision of Erasmus’). Erasmus did not have it in any of his five editions. Most likely Beza put in the feminine form αὐτῆς (auths) because, recognizing that the eius found in several Latin mss could be read either as a masculine or a feminine, he made the contextually more satisfying choice of the feminine. Perhaps it crept into one or two late Greek witnesses via this interpretive Latin back-translation. So the evidence for the feminine singular is virtually nonexistent, while the masculine singular αὐτοῦ (autou, “his”) was a clear scribal blunder. There can be no doubt that “their purification” is the authentic reading.

¹⁰ tn Grk “they”; the referents (Joseph and Mary) have been specified in the translation for clarity.

¹¹ tn Grk “him”; the referent (Jesus) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

¹² map For location see Map5-B1; Map6-F3; Map7-E2; Map8-F2; Map10-B3; JP1-F4; JP2-F4; JP3-F4; JP4-F4.

¹³ tn Grk “every male that opens the womb” (an idiom for the firstborn male).

¹⁴ sn An allusion to Exod 13:2, 12, 15.

¹⁵ sn The offering of a pair of doves or two young pigeons, instead of a lamb, speaks of the humble roots of Jesus’ family – they apparently could not afford the expense of a lamb.

¹⁶ sn A quotation from Lev 12:8; 5:11 (LXX).

¹⁷ tn Grk “And behold.” Here καί (kai) has been translated as “now” to indicate the transition to a new topic. The Greek word ἰδού (idou) at the beginning of this statement has not been translated because it has no exact English equivalent here, but adds interest and emphasis (BDAG 468 s.v. 1).

¹⁸ map For location see Map5-B1; Map6-F3; Map7-E2; Map8-F2; Map10-B3; JP1-F4; JP2-F4; JP3-F4; JP4-F4.

¹⁹ tn Grk “This man was righteous.” The Greek text begins a new sentence here, but this was changed to a relative clause in the translation to avoid redundancy.

²⁰ tn Or “deliverance,” “consolation.”

²¹ sn Once again, by mentioning the Holy Spirit, Luke stresses the prophetic enablement of a speaker. The Spirit has fallen on both men (Zechariah, 1:67) and women (Elizabeth, 1:41) in Luke 1–2 as they share the will of the Lord.

²² tn Grk “And it.” Here καί (kai) has not been translated because of differences between Greek and English style.

²³ tn The use of the passive suggests a revelation by God, and in the OT the corresponding Hebrew term represented here by κεχρηματισμένον (kecrhmatismenon) indicated some form of direct revelation from God (Jer 25:30; 33:2; Job 40:8).

²⁴ tn Grk “would not see death” (an idiom for dying).

²⁵ tn On the grammar of this temporal clause, see BDF §§383.3; 395.

²⁶ tn Or “Messiah”; both “Christ” (Greek) and “Messiah” (Hebrew and Aramaic) mean “one who has been anointed.”

²⁷ tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “so” to indicate the consequential nature of the action.

²⁸ tn Grk “he”; the referent (Simeon) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

²⁹ tn Grk “So in the Spirit” or “So by the Spirit,” but since it refers to the Spirit’s direction the expanded translation “directed by the Spirit” is used here.

³⁰ tn Grk “the temple.”

³¹ tn Grk “to do for him according to the custom of the law.” See Luke 2:22-24.

³² tn Grk “of the circumcision”; that is, the Jews.

³³ tn Or “to the patriarchs.”

³⁴ tn The participle ἐξαλείψας (exaleiyas) is a temporal adverbial participle of contemporaneous time related to the previous verb συνεζωοποίησεν (sunezwopoihsen), but has been translated as a finite verb because of the complexity of the Greek sentence and the tendency of contemporary English to use shorter sentences. For the meaning “destroy” see BDAG 344-45 s.v. ἐξαλείφω 2.

³⁵ tn On the translation of χειρόγραφον (ceirografon), see BDAG 1083 s.v. which refers to it as “a certificate of indebtedness.”