1 Samuel 2:30

2:30 Therefore the Lord, the God of Israel, says, ‘I really did say ¹  that your house and your ancestor’s house would serve ²  me forever.’ But now the Lord says, ‘May it never be! ³  For I will honor those who honor me, but those who despise me will be cursed!

John 5:44

5:44 How can you believe, if you accept praise ⁴  from one another and don’t seek the praise ⁵  that comes from the only God? ⁶ 

John 12:26

12:26 If anyone wants to serve me, he must follow ⁷  me, and where I am, my servant will be too. ⁸  If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him.

John 12:43

12:43 For they loved praise ⁹  from men more than praise ¹⁰  from God.

John 12:1

Jesus’ Anointing

12:1 Then, six days before the Passover, Jesus came to Bethany, where Lazarus lived, whom he ¹¹  had raised from the dead.

John 1:21

1:21 So they asked him, “Then who are you? ¹²  Are you Elijah?” He said, “I am not!” ¹³  “Are you the Prophet?” ¹⁴  He answered, “No!”

John 3:22

Further Testimony About Jesus by John the Baptist

3:22 After this, ¹⁵  Jesus and his disciples came into Judean territory, and there he spent time with them and was baptizing.

John 5:4

5:4 [[EMPTY]] ¹⁶ 

Revelation 3:21

3:21 I will grant the one ¹⁷  who conquers ¹⁸  permission ¹⁹  to sit with me on my throne, just as I too conquered ²⁰  and sat down with my Father on his throne.

[2:30]  ¹ tn The infinitive absolute appears before the finite verb for emphasis.

[2:30]  ² tn Heb “walk about before.”

[2:30]  ³ tn Heb “may it be far removed from me.”

[5:44]  ⁴ tn Or “honor” (Grk “glory,” in the sense of respect or honor accorded to a person because of their status).

[5:44]  ⁵ tn Or “honor” (Grk “glory,” in the sense of respect or honor accorded to a person because of their status).

[5:44]  ⁶ tc Several early and important witnesses (Ì^66,75 B W a b sa) lack θεοῦ (qeou, “God”) here, thus reading “the only one,” while most of the rest of the tradition, including some important mss, has the name ({א A D L Θ Ψ 33 Ï}). Internally, it could be argued that the name of God was not used here, in keeping with the NT practice of suppressing the name of God at times for rhetorical effect, drawing the reader inexorably to the conclusion that the one being spoken of is God himself. On the other hand, never is ὁ μόνος (Jo mono") used absolutely in the NT (i.e., without a noun or substantive with it), and always the subject of the adjunct is God (cf. Matt 24:36; John 17:3; 1 Tim 6:16). What then is to explain the shorter reading? In uncial script, with θεοῦ written as a nomen sacrum, envisioning accidental omission of the name by way of homoioteleuton requires little imagination, largely because of the succession of words ending in -ου: toumonouqMuou. It is thus preferable to retain the word in the text.

[12:26]  ⁷ tn As a third person imperative in Greek, ἀκολουθείτω (akolouqeitw) is usually translated “let him follow me.” This could be understood by the modern English reader as merely permissive, however (“he may follow me if he wishes”). In this context there is no permissive sense, but rather a command, so the translation “he must follow me” is preferred.

[12:26]  ⁸ tn Grk “where I am, there my servant will be too.”

[12:43]  ⁹ tn Grk “the glory.”

[12:43]  ¹⁰ tn Grk “the glory.”

[12:1]  ¹¹ tn Grk “whom Jesus,” but a repetition of the proper name (Jesus) here would be redundant in the English clause structure, so the pronoun (“he”) is substituted in the translation.

[1:21]  ¹² tn Grk “What then?” (an idiom).

[1:21]  ¹³ sn According to the 1st century rabbinic interpretation of 2 Kgs 2:11, Elijah was still alive. In Mal 4:5 it is said that Elijah would be the precursor of Messiah. How does one reconcile John the Baptist’s denial here (“I am not”) with Jesus’ statements in Matt 11:14 (see also Mark 9:13 and Matt 17:12) that John the Baptist was Elijah? Some have attempted to remove the difficulty by a reconstruction of the text in the Gospel of John which makes the Baptist say that he was Elijah. However, external support for such emendations is lacking. According to Gregory the Great, John was not Elijah, but exercised toward Jesus the function of Elijah by preparing his way. But this avoids the real difficulty, since in John’s Gospel the question of the Jewish authorities to the Baptist concerns precisely his function. It has also been suggested that the author of the Gospel here preserves a historically correct reminiscence – that John the Baptist did not think of himself as Elijah, although Jesus said otherwise. Mark 6:14-16 and Mark 8:28 indicate the people and Herod both distinguished between John and Elijah – probably because he did not see himself as Elijah. But Jesus’ remarks in Matt 11:14, Mark 9:13, and Matt 17:12 indicate that John did perform the function of Elijah – John did for Jesus what Elijah was to have done for the coming of the Lord. C. F. D. Moule pointed out that it is too simple to see a straight contradiction between John’s account and that of the synoptic gospels: “We have to ask by whom the identification is made, and by whom refused. The synoptic gospels represent Jesus as identifying, or comparing, the Baptist with Elijah, while John represents the Baptist as rejecting the identification when it is offered him by his interviewers. Now these two, so far from being incompatible, are psychologically complementary. The Baptist humbly rejects the exalted title, but Jesus, on the contrary, bestows it on him. Why should not the two both be correct?” (The Phenomenon of the New Testament [SBT], 70).

[1:21]  ¹⁴ sn The Prophet is a reference to the “prophet like Moses” of Deut 18:15, by this time an eschatological figure in popular belief. Acts 3:22 identifies Jesus as this prophet.

[3:22]  ¹⁵ tn This section is related loosely to the preceding by μετὰ ταῦτα (meta tauta). This constitutes an indefinite temporal reference; the intervening time is not specified.

[5:4]  ¹⁶ tc The majority of later mss (C³ Θ Ψ 078 Ë^1,13 Ï) add the following to 5:3: “waiting for the moving of the water. 5:4 For an angel of the Lord went down and stirred up the water at certain times. Whoever first stepped in after the stirring of the water was healed from whatever disease which he suffered.” Other mss include only v. 3b (A^c D 33 lat) or v. 4 (A L it). Few textual scholars today would accept the authenticity of any portion of vv. 3b-4, for they are not found in the earliest and best witnesses (Ì^66,75 א B C* T pc co), they include un-Johannine vocabulary and syntax, several of the mss that include the verses mark them as spurious (with an asterisk or obelisk), and because there is a great amount of textual diversity among the witnesses that do include the verses. The present translation follows NA²⁷ in omitting the verse number, a procedure also followed by a number of other modern translations.

[3:21]  ¹⁷ tn Grk “The one who conquers, to him I will grant.”

[3:21]  ¹⁸ tn Or “who is victorious”; traditionally, “who overcomes.”

[3:21]  ¹⁹ tn Grk “I will give [grant] to him.”

[3:21]  ²⁰ tn Or “have been victorious”; traditionally, “have overcome.”