Psalms 42:5

42:5 Why are you depressed, ¹  O my soul? ² 

Why are you upset? ³ 

Wait for God!

For I will again give thanks

to my God for his saving intervention. ⁴ 

Psalms 146:3-5

146:3 Do not trust in princes,

or in human beings, who cannot deliver! ⁵ 

146:4 Their life’s breath departs, they return to the ground;

on that day their plans die. ⁶ 

146:5 How blessed is the one whose helper is the God of Jacob,

whose hope is in the Lord his God,

Jeremiah 17:7

17:7 My blessing is on those people who trust in me,

who put their confidence in me. ⁷ 

John 14:1

Jesus’ Parting Words to His Disciples

14:1 “Do not let your hearts be distressed. ⁸  You believe in God; ⁹  believe also in me.

Ephesians 1:12-13

1:12 so that we, who were the first to set our hope ¹⁰  on Christ, ¹¹  would be to the praise of his glory. 1:13 And when ¹²  you heard the word of truth (the gospel of your salvation) – when you believed in Christ ¹³  – you were marked with the seal ¹⁴  of the promised Holy Spirit, ¹⁵ 

Ephesians 1:15

Prayer for Wisdom and Revelation

1:15 For this reason, ¹⁶  because I ¹⁷  have heard ¹⁸  of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love ¹⁹  for all the saints,

Colossians 1:27

1:27 God wanted to make known to them the glorious ²⁰  riches of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.

Colossians 1:1

Salutation

1:1 From Paul, ²¹  an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother,

Colossians 1:1

Salutation

1:1 From Paul, ²²  an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother,

¹ tn Heb “Why do you bow down?”

² sn For poetic effect the psalmist addresses his soul, or inner self.

³ tn Heb “and [why] are you in turmoil upon me?” The prefixed verbal form with vav (ו) consecutive here carries on the descriptive present nuance of the preceding imperfect. See GKC 329 §111.t.

⁴ tc Heb “for again I will give him thanks, the saving acts of his face.” The verse division in the Hebrew text is incorrect. אֱלֹהַי (’elohay, “my God”) at the beginning of v. 7 belongs with the end of v. 6 (see the corresponding refrains in 42:11 and 43:5, both of which end with “my God” after “saving acts of my face”). The Hebrew term פָּנָיו (panayv, “his face”) should be emended to פְּנֵי (pÿney, “face of”). The emended text reads, “[for] the saving acts of the face of my God,” that is, the saving acts associated with God’s presence/intervention.

⁵ tn Heb “in a son of man, to whom there is no deliverance.”

⁶ tn Heb “his spirit goes out, it returns to his ground; in that day his plans die.” The singular refers to the representative man mentioned in v. 3b.

⁷ tn Heb “Blessed is the person who trusts in the Lord, and whose confidence is in the Lord.” However, because this is a statement of the Lord and the translation chooses to show that the blessing comes from him, the first person is substituted for the divine name.

⁸ sn The same verb is used to describe Jesus’ own state in John 11:33, 12:27, and 13:21. Jesus is looking ahead to the events of the evening and the next day, his arrest, trials, crucifixion, and death, which will cause his disciples extreme emotional distress.

⁹ tn Or “Believe in God.” The translation of the two uses of πιστεύετε (pisteuete) is difficult. Both may be either indicative or imperative, and as L. Morris points out (John [NICNT], 637), this results in a bewildering variety of possibilities. To complicate matters further, the first may be understood as a question: “Do you believe in God? Believe also in me.” Morris argues against the KJV translation which renders the first πιστεύετε as indicative and the second as imperative on the grounds that for the writer of the Fourth Gospel, faith in Jesus is inseparable from faith in God. But this is precisely the point that Jesus is addressing in context. He is about to undergo rejection by his own people as their Messiah. The disciples’ faith in him as Messiah and Lord would be cast into extreme doubt by these events, which the author makes clear were not at this time foreseen by the disciples. After the resurrection it is this identification between Jesus and the Father which needs to be reaffirmed (cf. John 20:24-29). Thus it seems best to take the first πιστεύετε as indicative and the second as imperative, producing the translation “You believe in God; believe also in me.”

¹⁰ tn Or “who had already hoped.”

¹¹ tn Or “the Messiah.”

¹² tn Grk “in whom you also, when…” (continuing the sentence from v. 12).

¹³ tn Grk “in whom also having believed.” The relative pronoun “whom” has been replaced in the translation with its antecedent (“Christ”) to improve the clarity.

¹⁴ tn Or “you were sealed.”

¹⁵ tn Grk “the Holy Spirit of promise.” Here ἐπαγγελίας (epangelias, “of promise”) has been translated as an attributive genitive.

¹⁶ sn The conjunctive phrase For this reason points back to the preceding section, vv. 3-14, which is also summed up in this verse in the expression because I have heard of your faith. In other words, the author’s prayer can be made for his audience because he knows that they are true believers.

¹⁷ tn Grk “even I.”

¹⁸ tn Grk “having also heard.”

¹⁹ tc Ì⁴⁶ א* A B P 33 1739 1881 2464 Hier lack “your love” (τὴν ἀγάπην, thn agaphn), while various other groups of mss have different arrangements of the phrase “your love toward all the saints” (τὴν ἀγάπην τὴν εἰς πάντας τοὺς ἁγίους, thn agaphn thn ei" panta" tou" Jagiou"). Most witnesses, especially the later ones (א² D¹ Ψ Ï latt sa), read τὴν ἀγάπην τὴν εἰς πάντας τοὺς ἁγίους. Externally, the shorter reading is superior. Internally, the omission of τὴν ἀγάπην is a significantly harder reading, for the saints become an object of faith on par with the Lord Jesus. If this reading is authentic, however, the force of πίστις (pisti") is probably closer to “faithfulness,” a meaning that could perhaps be suitable toward both the Lord and the saints. Nevertheless, if the shorter reading is authentic, later scribes would no doubt have been tempted to alter it. With the parallel in Col 1:4 at hand, τὴν ἀγάπην would have been the most obvious phrase to add. (TCGNT 533 suggests that ἣν ἔχετε would have been added instead of the second τήν if the shorter reading were original, in conformity with Col 1:4, but this is not necessarily so: Scribes often altered the text as minimally as possible, and since the second τήν was already present, replacing it with ἣν ἔχετε, when the meaning was not significantly different from the second τήν, seems unlikely.) Further, ἀγάπην comes after “saints” (thus, τὴν εἰς πάντας τοὺς ἁγίους ἀγάπην) in some witnesses (81 104 326 365 1175), and the second τήν is lacking (thus, τὴν ἀγάπην εἰς πάντας τοὺς ἁγίους) in others (D* F G). Such a floating text normally indicates inauthenticity. On the other hand, τὴν ἀγάπην could easily have dropped out of the text by way of haplography, the Alexandrian scribes’ eyes skipping from τήν to τήν. The weak first declension feminine article-noun-article construction is common enough in the NT, occurring over 40 times, yet in four of these texts there is some ms evidence for an omission similar to Eph 1:15 (Rom 11:17; 2 Tim 3:10; Rev 11:2; 21:9). But in none of these places is the Alexandrian testimony united in the omission as it is here. Further, a wholesale Alexandrian omission of τὴν ἀγάπην presupposes a much stronger genealogical relation among the Alexandrian mss than many scholars would embrace. What seems to tip the scales in favor of the longer reading, however, is the intrinsic evidence: The question of whether πίστις could be used to mean faithfulness in the general sense toward both the Lord and the saints is quite problematic. All in all, a decision is difficult, but the longer reading is, with hesitation, preferred.

²⁰ tn The genitive noun τῆς δόξης (ths doxhs) is an attributive genitive and has therefore been translated as “glorious riches.”

²¹ tn Grk “Paul.” The word “from” is not in the Greek text, but has been supplied to indicate the sender of the letter.

²² tn Grk “Paul.” The word “from” is not in the Greek text, but has been supplied to indicate the sender of the letter.