2 Corinthians 3:18

3:18 And we all, with unveiled faces reflecting the glory of the Lord, ¹  are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another, ²  which is from ³  the Lord, who is the Spirit. ⁴ 

Genesis 15:1

The Cutting of the Covenant

15:1 After these things the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision: “Fear not, Abram! I am your shield ⁵  and the one who will reward you in great abundance.” ⁶ 

Psalms 31:19

31:19 How great is your favor, ⁷ 

which you store up for your loyal followers! ⁸ 

In plain sight of everyone you bestow it on those who take shelter ⁹  in you. ¹⁰ 

Psalms 73:24

73:24 You guide ¹¹  me by your wise advice,

and then you will lead me to a position of honor. ¹² 

Isaiah 64:4

64:4 Since ancient times no one has heard or perceived, ¹³ 

no eye has seen any God besides you,

who intervenes for those who wait for him.

Luke 6:23

6:23 Rejoice in that day, and jump for joy, because ¹⁴  your reward is great in heaven. For their ancestors ¹⁵  did the same things to the prophets. ¹⁶ 

Romans 2:7

2:7 eternal life to those who by perseverance in good works seek glory and honor and immortality,

Romans 2:1

The Condemnation of the Moralist

2:1 ¹⁷ Therefore ¹⁸  you are without excuse, ¹⁹  whoever you are, ²⁰  when you judge someone else. ²¹  For on whatever grounds ²²  you judge another, you condemn yourself, because you who judge practice the same things.

Colossians 2:9

2:9 For in him all the fullness of deity lives ²³  in bodily form,

Colossians 2:1

2:1 For I want you to know how great a struggle I have for you, ²⁴  and for those in Laodicea, and for those who have not met me face to face. ²⁵ 

Colossians 1:7-8

1:7 You learned the gospel ²⁶  from Epaphras, our dear fellow slave ²⁷  – a ²⁸  faithful minister of Christ on our ²⁹  behalf – 1:8 who also told us of your love in the Spirit.

Colossians 1:10

1:10 so that you may live ³⁰  worthily of the Lord and please him in all respects ³¹  – bearing fruit in every good deed, growing in the knowledge of God,

Colossians 1:1

Salutation

1:1 From Paul, ³²  an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother,

Colossians 3:2

3:2 Keep thinking about things above, not things on the earth,

Jude 1:24

Final Blessing

1:24 Now to the one who is able to keep you from falling, ³³  and to cause you to stand, rejoicing, ³⁴  without blemish ³⁵  before his glorious presence, ³⁶ 

[3:18]  ¹ tn Or “we all with unveiled faces beholding the glory of the Lord as in a mirror.”

[3:18]  ² tn Grk “from glory to glory.”

[3:18]  ³ tn Grk “just as from.”

[3:18]  ⁴ tn Grk “from the Lord, the Spirit”; the genitive πνεύματος (pneumato") has been translated as a genitive of apposition.

[15:1]  ⁵ sn The noun “shield” recalls the words of Melchizedek in 14:20. If God is the shield, then God will deliver. Abram need not fear reprisals from those he has fought.

[15:1]  ⁶ tn Heb “your reward [in] great abundance.” When the phrase הַרְבּה מְאֹדֵ (harbeh mÿod) follows a noun it invariably modifies the noun and carries the nuance “very great” or “in great abundance.” (See its use in Gen 41:49; Deut 3:5; Josh 22:8; 2 Sam 8:8; 12:2; 1 Kgs 4:29; 10:10-11; 2 Chr 14:13; 32:27; Jer 40:12.) Here the noun “reward” is in apposition to “shield” and refers by metonymy to God as the source of the reward. Some translate here “your reward will be very great” (cf. NASB, NRSV), taking the statement as an independent clause and understanding the Hiphil infinitive absolute as a substitute for a finite verb. However, the construction הַרְבּה מְאֹדֵ is never used this way elsewhere, where it either modifies a noun (see the texts listed above) or serves as an adverb in relation to a finite verb (see Josh 13:1; 1 Sam 26:21; 2 Sam 12:30; 2 Kgs 21:16; 1 Chr 20:2; Neh 2:2).

[31:19]  ⁹ tn Or “How abundant are your blessings!”

[31:19]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “for those who fear you.”

[31:19]  ¹¹ tn “Taking shelter” in the Lord is an idiom for seeking his protection. Seeking his protection presupposes and even demonstrates the subject’s loyalty to the Lord. In the psalms those who “take shelter” in the Lord are contrasted with the wicked and equated with those who love, fear, and serve the Lord (Pss 2:12; 5:11-12; 34:21-22).

[31:19]  ¹² tn Heb “you work [your favor] for the ones seeking shelter in you before the sons of men.”

[73:24]  ¹³ tn The imperfect verbal form here suggests this is the psalmist’s ongoing experience.

[73:24]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “and afterward [to] glory you will take me.” Some interpreters view this as the psalmist’s confidence in an afterlife in God’s presence and understand כָּבוֹד (cavod) as a metonymic reference to God’s presence in heaven. But this seems unlikely in the present context. The psalmist anticipates a time of vindication, when the wicked are destroyed and he is honored by God for his godly life style. The verb לָקַח (laqakh, “take”) here carries the nuance “lead, guide, conduct,” as in Num 23:14, 27-28; Josh 24:3 and Prov 24:11.

[64:4]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “from ancient times they have not heard, they have not listened.”

[6:23]  ²¹ tn Grk “because behold.” The Greek word ἰδού (idou) at the beginning of this clause has not been translated because it has no exact English equivalent here, but adds interest and emphasis (BDAG 468 s.v. 1).

[6:23]  ²² tn Or “forefathers”; Grk “fathers.”

[6:23]  ²³ sn Mistreatment of the prophets is something Luke often notes (Luke 11:47-51; Acts 7:51-52).

[2:1]  ²⁵ sn Rom 2:1-29 presents unusual difficulties for the interpreter. There have been several major approaches to the chapter and the group(s) it refers to: (1) Rom 2:14 refers to Gentile Christians, not Gentiles who obey the Jewish law. (2) Paul in Rom 2 is presenting a hypothetical viewpoint: If anyone could obey the law, that person would be justified, but no one can. (3) The reference to “the ones who do the law” in 2:13 are those who “do” the law in the right way, on the basis of faith, not according to Jewish legalism. (4) Rom 2:13 only speaks about Christians being judged in the future, along with such texts as Rom 14:10 and 2 Cor 5:10. (5) Paul’s material in Rom 2 is drawn heavily from Diaspora Judaism, so that the treatment of the law presented here cannot be harmonized with other things Paul says about the law elsewhere (E. P. Sanders, Paul, the Law, and the Jewish People, 123); another who sees Rom 2 as an example of Paul’s inconsistency in his treatment of the law is H. Räisänen, Paul and the Law [WUNT], 101-9. (6) The list of blessings and curses in Deut 27–30 provide the background for Rom 2; the Gentiles of 2:14 are Gentile Christians, but the condemnation of Jews in 2:17-24 addresses the failure of Jews as a nation to keep the law as a whole (A. Ito, “Romans 2: A Deuteronomistic Reading,” JSNT 59 [1995]: 21-37).

[2:1]  ²⁶ tn Some interpreters (e.g., C. K. Barrett, Romans [HNTC], 43) connect the inferential Διό (dio, “therefore”) with 1:32a, treating 1:32b as a parenthetical comment by Paul.

[2:1]  ²⁷ tn That is, “you have nothing to say in your own defense” (so translated by TCNT).

[2:1]  ²⁸ tn Grk “O man.”

[2:1]  ²⁹ tn Grk “Therefore, you are without excuse, O man, everyone [of you] who judges.”

[2:1]  ³⁰ tn Grk “in/by (that) which.”

[2:9]  ²⁹ sn In him all the fullness of deity lives. The present tense in this verse (“lives”) is significant. Again, as was stated in the note on 1:19, this is not a temporary dwelling, but a permanent one. Paul’s point is polemical against the idea that the fullness of God dwells anywhere else, as the Gnostics believed, except in Christ alone. At the incarnation, the second person of the Trinity assumed humanity, and is forever the God-man.

[2:1]  ³³ tn Or “I want you to know how hard I am working for you…”

[2:1]  ³⁴ tn Grk “as many as have not seen my face in the flesh.”

[1:7]  ³⁷ tn Or “learned it.” The Greek text simply has “you learned” without the reference to “the gospel,” but “the gospel” is supplied to clarify the sense of the clause. Direct objects were frequently omitted in Greek when clear from the context.

[1:7]  ³⁸ tn The Greek word translated “fellow slave” is σύνδουλος (sundoulo"); the σύν- prefix here denotes association. Though δοῦλος is normally translated “servant,” the word does not bear the connotation of a free individual serving another. BDAG notes that “‘servant’ for ‘slave’ is largely confined to Biblical transl. and early American times…in normal usage at the present time the two words are carefully distinguished” (BDAG 260 s.v.). The most accurate translation is “bondservant” (sometimes found in the ASV for δοῦλος), in that it often indicates one who sells himself into slavery to another. But as this is archaic, few today understand its force.

[1:7]  ³⁹ tn The Greek text has “who (ὅς, Jos) is a faithful minister.” The above translation conveys the antecedent of the relative pronoun quite well and avoids the redundancy with the following substantival participle of v. 8, namely, “who told” (ὁ δηλώσας, Jo dhlwsa").

[1:7]  ⁴⁰ tc ‡ Judging by the superior witnesses for the first person pronoun ἡμῶν (Jhmwn, “us”; Ì⁴⁶ א* A B D* F G 326* 1505 al) vs. the second person pronoun ὑμῶν (Jumwn, “you”; found in א² C D¹ Ψ 075 33 1739 1881 Ï lat sy co), ἡμῶν should be regarded as original. Although it is possible that ἡμῶν was an early alteration of ὑμῶν (either unintentionally, as dittography, since it comes seventeen letters after the previous ἡμῶν; or intentionally, to conform to the surrounding first person pronouns), this supposition is difficult to maintain in light of the varied and valuable witnesses for this reading. Further, the second person is both embedded in the verb ἐμάθετε (emaqete) and is explicit in v. 8 (ὑμῶν). Hence, the motivation to change to the first person pronoun is counterbalanced by such evidence. The second person pronoun may have been introduced unintentionally via homoioarcton with the ὑπέρ (Juper) that immediately precedes it. As well, the second person reading is somewhat harder for it seems to address Epaphras’ role only in relation to Paul and his colleagues, rather than in relation to the Colossians. Nevertheless, the decision must be based ultimately on external evidence (because the internal evidence can be variously interpreted), and this strongly supports ἡμῶν.

[1:10]  ⁴¹ tn The infinitive περιπατῆσαι (peripathsai, “to walk, to live, to live one’s life”) is best taken as an infinitive of purpose related to “praying” (προσευχόμενοι, proseucomenoi) and “asking” (αἰτούμενοι, aitoumenoi) in v. 9 and is thus translated as “that you may live.”

[1:10]  ⁴² tn BDAG 129 s.v. ἀρεσκεία states that ἀρεσκείαν (areskeian) refers to a “desire to please εἰς πᾶσαν ἀ. to please (the Lord) in all respects Col 1:10.”

[1:1]  ⁴⁵ tn Grk “Paul.” The word “from” is not in the Greek text, but has been supplied to indicate the sender of the letter.

[1:24]  ⁴⁹ tn The construction in Greek is a double accusative object-complement. “You” is the object and “free from falling” is the adjectival complement.

[1:24]  ⁵⁰ tn Grk “with rejoicing.” The prepositional clause is placed after “his glorious presence” in Greek, but most likely goes with “cause you to stand.”

[1:24]  ⁵¹ tn The construction in Greek is a double accusative object-complement. “You” is the object and “without blemish” is the adjectival complement.

[1:24]  ⁵² tn Or “in the presence of his glory,” “before his glory.”