2 Samuel 13:3

13:3 Now Amnon had a friend named Jonadab, the son of David’s brother Shimeah. Jonadab was a very crafty man.

2 Samuel 16:21-23

16:21 Ahithophel replied to Absalom, “Have sex with ¹  your father’s concubines whom he left to care for the palace. All Israel will hear that you have made yourself repulsive to your father. Then your followers will be motivated to support you.” ²  16:22 So they pitched a tent for Absalom on the roof, ³  and Absalom had sex with ⁴  his father’s concubines in the sight of all Israel.

16:23 In those days Ahithophel’s advice was considered as valuable as a prophetic revelation. ⁵  Both David and Absalom highly regarded the advice of Ahithophel. ⁶ 

Micah 2:1

Land Robbers Will Lose their Land

2:1 Those who devise sinful plans are as good as dead, ⁷ 

those who dream about doing evil as they lie in bed. ⁸ 

As soon as morning dawns they carry out their plans, ⁹ 

because they have the power to do so.

Luke 16:8

16:8 The ¹⁰  master commended the dishonest ¹¹  manager because he acted shrewdly. ¹²  For the people ¹³  of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their contemporaries ¹⁴  than the people ¹⁵  of light.

Romans 16:19

16:19 Your obedience is known to all and thus I rejoice over you. But I want you to be wise in what is good and innocent in what is evil.

Romans 16:1

Personal Greetings

16:1 Now I commend to you our sister Phoebe, who is a servant ¹⁶  of the church in Cenchrea,

Colossians 1:20

1:20 and through him to reconcile all things to himself by making peace through the blood of his cross – through him, ¹⁷  whether things on earth or things in heaven.

[16:21]  ¹ tn Heb “go to”; NAB “have (+ sexual NCV) relations with”; TEV “have intercourse with”; NLT “Go and sleep with.”

[16:21]  ² tn Heb “and the hands of all who are with you will be strengthened.”

[16:22]  ³ sn That is, on top of the flat roof of the palace, so it would be visible to the public.

[16:22]  ⁴ tn Heb “went to”; NAB “he visited his father’s concubines”; NIV “lay with his father’s concubines”; TEV “went in and had intercourse with.”

[16:23]  ⁵ tn Heb “And the advice of Ahithophel which he advised in those days was as when one inquires of the word of God.”

[16:23]  ⁶ tn Heb “So was all the advice of Ahithophel, also to David, also to Absalom.”

[2:1]  ⁷ tn Heb “Woe to those who plan sin.” The Hebrew term הוֹי (hoy, “woe”; “ah”) was a cry used in mourning the dead.

[2:1]  ⁸ tn Heb “those who do evil upon their beds.”

[2:1]  ⁹ tn Heb “at the light of morning they do it.”

[16:8]  ¹⁰ tn Grk “And the.” Here καί (kai) has not been translated because of differences between Greek and English style.

[16:8]  ¹¹ sn Is the manager dishonest because of what he just did? Or is it a reference to what he had done earlier, described in v. 1? This is a difficult question, but it seems unlikely that the master, having fired the man for prior dishonesty, would now commend those same actions. It would also be unusual for Jesus to make that point of the story the example. Thus it is more likely the reference to dishonesty goes back to the earliest events, while the commendation is for the cleverness of the former manager reflected in vv. 5-7.

[16:8]  ¹² sn Where this parable ends is debated: Does it conclude with v. 7, after v. 8a, after v. 8b, or after v. 9? Verse 8a looks as if it is still part of the story, with its clear reference to the manager, while 8b looks like Jesus’ application, since its remarks are more general. So it is most likely the parable stops after v. 8a.

[16:8]  ¹³ tn Grk “sons” (an idiom).

[16:8]  ¹⁴ tn Grk “with their own generation.”

[16:8]  ¹⁵ tn Grk “sons.” Here the phrase “sons of light” is a reference to the righteous. The point is that those of the world often think ahead about consequences better than the righteous do.

[16:1]  ¹⁶ tn Or “deaconess.” It is debated whether διάκονος (diakonos) here refers to a specific office within the church. One contextual argument used to support this view is that Phoebe is associated with a particular church, Cenchrea, and as such would therefore be a deacon of that church. In the NT some who are called διάκονος are related to a particular church, yet the scholarly consensus is that such individuals are not deacons, but “servants” or “ministers” (other viable translations for διάκονος). For example, Epaphras is associated with the church in Colossians and is called a διάκονος in Col 1:7, but no contemporary translation regards him as a deacon. In 1 Tim 4:6 Paul calls Timothy a διάκονος; Timothy was associated with the church in Ephesus, but he obviously was not a deacon. In addition, the lexical evidence leans away from this view: Within the NT, the διακον- word group rarely functions with a technical nuance. In any case, the evidence is not compelling either way. The view accepted in the translation above is that Phoebe was a servant of the church, not a deaconess, although this conclusion should be regarded as tentative.

[1:20]  ¹⁷ tc The presence or absence of the second occurrence of the phrase δι᾿ αὐτοῦ (di’ autou, “through him”) is a difficult textual problem to solve. External evidence is fairly evenly divided. Many ancient and excellent witnesses lack the phrase (B D* F G I 0278 81 1175 1739 1881 2464 al latt sa), but equally important witnesses have it (Ì⁴⁶ א A C D¹ Ψ 048^vid 33 Ï). Both readings have strong Alexandrian support, which makes the problem difficult to decide on external evidence alone. Internal evidence points to the inclusion of the phrase as original. The word immediately preceding the phrase is the masculine pronoun αὐτοῦ (autou); thus the possibility of omission through homoioteleuton in various witnesses is likely. Scribes might have deleted the phrase because of perceived redundancy or awkwardness in the sense: The shorter reading is smoother and more elegant, so scribes would be prone to correct the text in that direction. As far as style is concerned, repetition of key words and phrases for emphasis is not foreign to the corpus Paulinum (see, e.g., Rom 8:23, Eph 1:13, 2 Cor 12:7). In short, it is easier to account for the shorter reading arising from the longer reading than vice versa, so the longer reading is more likely original.