Matthew 5:10-12

5:10 “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to them.

5:11 “Blessed are you when people ¹  insult you and persecute you and say all kinds of evil things about you falsely ²  on account of me. 5:12 Rejoice and be glad because your reward is great in heaven, for they persecuted the prophets before you in the same way.

Acts 5:41

5:41 So they left the council rejoicing because they had been considered worthy ³  to suffer dishonor for the sake of the name. ⁴ 

Acts 5:1

The Judgment on Ananias and Sapphira

5:1 Now a man named Ananias, together with Sapphira his wife, sold a piece of property.

Colossians 4:12-13

4:12 Epaphras, who is one of you and a slave ⁵  of Christ, ⁶  greets you. He is always struggling in prayer on your behalf, so that you may stand mature and fully assured ⁷  in all the will of God. 4:13 For I can testify that he has worked hard ⁸  for you and for those in Laodicea and Hierapolis.

Hebrews 10:33

10:33 At times you were publicly exposed to abuse and afflictions, and at other times you came to share with others who were treated in that way.

Hebrews 11:36

11:36 And others experienced mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment.

¹ tn Grk “when they insult you.” The third person pronoun (here implied in the verb ὀνειδίσωσιν [ojneidiswsin]) has no specific referent, but refers to people in general.

² tc Although ψευδόμενοι (yeudomenoi, “bearing witness falsely”) could be a motivated reading, clarifying that the disciples are unjustly persecuted, its lack in only D it sy^s Tert does not help its case. Since the Western text is known for numerous free alterations, without corroborative evidence the shorter reading must be judged as secondary.

³ sn That is, considered worthy by God. They “gloried in their shame” of honoring Jesus with their testimony (Luke 6:22-23; 2 Macc 6:30).

⁴ sn The name refers to the name of Jesus (cf. 3 John 7).

⁵ tn See the note on “fellow slave” in 1:7.

⁶ tc ‡ Strong Alexandrian testimony, along with some other witnesses, suggests that ᾿Ιησοῦ (Ihsou, “Jesus”) follows Χριστοῦ (Cristou, “Christ”; so א A B C I L 0278 33 81 365 629 1175 2464 al lat), but the evidence for the shorter reading is diverse (Ì⁴⁶ D F G Ψ 075 1739 1881 Ï it sy Hier), cutting across all major texttypes. There can be little motivation for omitting the name of Jesus; hence, the shorter reading is judged to be original. NA²⁷ has ᾿Ιησοῦ in brackets, indicating some doubts as to its authenticity.

⁷ tn Or “filled.”

⁸ tn Grk “pain.” This word appears only three times in the NT outside of this verse (Rev 16:10, 11; 21:4) where the translation “pain” makes sense. For the present verse it has been translated “worked hard.” See BDAG 852 s.v. πόνος 1.