Revelation 21:3

21:3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying: “Look! The residence of God is among human beings. He will live among them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them.

Zechariah 8:8

8:8 And I will bring them to settle within Jerusalem. They will be my people, and I will be their God, in truth and righteousness.’

Romans 8:15-17

8:15 For you did not receive the spirit of slavery leading again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption, by whom we cry, “Abba, Father.” 8:16 The Spirit himself bears witness to our spirit that we are God’s children. 8:17 And if children, then heirs (namely, heirs of God and also fellow heirs with Christ) 10  – if indeed we suffer with him so we may also be glorified with him.

Hebrews 8:10

8:10For this is the covenant that I will establish with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord. I will put 11  my laws in their minds 12  and I will inscribe them on their hearts. And I will be their God and they will be my people. 13 

Hebrews 8:1

The High Priest of a Better Covenant

8:1 Now the main point of what we are saying is this: 14  We have such a high priest, one who sat down at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven, 15 

Hebrews 3:1-3

Jesus and Moses

3:1 Therefore, holy brothers and sisters, 16  partners in a heavenly calling, take note of Jesus, the apostle and high priest whom we confess, 17  3:2 who is faithful to the one who appointed him, as Moses was also in God’s 18  house. 19  3:3 For he has come to deserve greater glory than Moses, just as the builder of a house deserves greater honor than the house itself!


tn Or “dwelling place”; traditionally, “tabernacle”; literally “tent.”

tn Or “people”; Grk “men” (ἀνθρώπων, anqrwpwn), a generic use of the term. In the translation “human beings” was used here because “people” occurs later in the verse and translates a different Greek word (λαοί, laoi).

tn Grk “men, and he.” Because of the length and complexity of the Greek sentence, a new sentence was started here in the translation.

tc ‡ Most mss (א ÏK) do not add the words “[as] their God” (αὐτῶν θεός, autwn qeos) after “he will be with them.” The mss with these words include A 2030 2050 2329 al. The Andreas group (ÏA) also has the words, but in a different arrangement with the preceding (ἔσται μετ᾿ αὐτῶν θεὸς αὐτῶν, estai metautwn qeo" autwn). Not only do the words float, but scribes may have been motivated to make a connection here more directly with Isa 7:14; 8:8; Jer 24:7; 31:33; Zech 8:8. In light of sufficient external evidence as well as the possibility that the longer reading is theologically motivated, the shorter reading is preferred. NA27 places the words in brackets, indicating doubts as to their authenticity.

sn The affirmation They will be my people, and I will be their God speaks of covenant renewal, a restoration of the unbroken fellowship the Lord desired to have with his people but which their disloyalty had shattered. In the eschaton God and Israel will be in covenant union once again (cf. Jer 31:33).

tn Grk “slavery again to fear.”

tn The Greek term υἱοθεσία (Juioqesia) was originally a legal technical term for adoption as a son with full rights of inheritance. BDAG 1024 s.v. notes, “a legal t.t. of ‘adoption’ of children, in our lit., i.e. in Paul, only in a transferred sense of a transcendent filial relationship between God and humans (with the legal aspect, not gender specificity, as major semantic component).”

tn Or “in that.”

tn Or possibly “with.” ExSyn 160-61, however, notes the following: “At issue, grammatically, is whether the Spirit testifies alongside of our spirit (dat. of association), or whether he testifies to our spirit (indirect object) that we are God’s children. If the former, the one receiving this testimony is unstated (is it God? or believers?). If the latter, the believer receives the testimony and hence is assured of salvation via the inner witness of the Spirit. The first view has the advantage of a σύν- (sun-) prefixed verb, which might be expected to take an accompanying dat. of association (and is supported by NEB, JB, etc.). But there are three reasons why πνεύματι (pneumati) should not be taken as association: (1) Grammatically, a dat. with a σύν- prefixed verb does not necessarily indicate association. This, of course, does not preclude such here, but this fact at least opens up the alternatives in this text. (2) Lexically, though συμμαρτυρέω (summarturew) originally bore an associative idea, it developed in the direction of merely intensifying μαρτυρέω (marturew). This is surely the case in the only other NT text with a dat. (Rom 9:1). (3) Contextually, a dat. of association does not seem to support Paul’s argument: ‘What standing has our spirit in this matter? Of itself it surely has no right at all to testify to our being sons of God’ [C. E. B. Cranfield, Romans [ICC], 1:403]. In sum, Rom 8:16 seems to be secure as a text in which the believer’s assurance of salvation is based on the inner witness of the Spirit. The implications of this for one’s soteriology are profound: The objective data, as helpful as they are, cannot by themselves provide assurance of salvation; the believer also needs (and receives) an existential, ongoing encounter with God’s Spirit in order to gain that familial comfort.”

10 tn Grk “on the one hand, heirs of God; on the other hand, fellow heirs with Christ.” Some prefer to render v. 17 as follows: “And if children, then heirs – that is, heirs of God. Also fellow heirs with Christ if indeed we suffer with him so we may also be glorified with him.” Such a translation suggests two distinct inheritances, one coming to all of God’s children, the other coming only to those who suffer with Christ. The difficulty of this view, however, is that it ignores the correlative conjunctions μένδέ (mende, “on the one hand…on the other hand”): The construction strongly suggests that the inheritances cannot be separated since both explain “then heirs.” For this reason, the preferred translation puts this explanation in parentheses.

11 tn Grk “putting…I will inscribe.”

12 tn Grk “mind.”

13 tn Grk “I will be to them for a God and they will be to me for a people,” following the Hebrew constructions of Jer 31.

14 tn Grk “the main point of the things being said.”

15 sn An allusion to Ps 110:1; see Heb 1:3, 13.

16 tn Grk “brothers.” See note on the phrase “brothers and sisters” in 2:11.

17 tn Grk “of our confession.”

18 tn Grk “his”; in the translation the referent (God) has been specified for clarity.

19 tc ‡ The reading adopted by the translation follows a few early mss and some versions (Ì13,46vid B vgms co Ambr). The majority of mss (א A C D Ψ 0243 0278 33 1739 1881 Ï lat sy) insert “all” (“in all his house”), apparently in anticipation of Heb 3:5 which quotes directly from Num 12:7. On balance, the omission better explains the rise of ὅλῳ ({olw, “all”) than vice versa. NA27 puts ὅλῳ in brackets, indicating doubts as to its authenticity.