2 Thessalonians 2:16

2:16 Now may our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who loved us and by grace gave us eternal comfort and good hope,

Isaiah 51:3

51:3 Certainly the Lord will console Zion;

he will console all her ruins.

He will make her wilderness like Eden,

her desert like the Garden of the Lord.

Happiness and joy will be restored to ¹  her,

thanksgiving and the sound of music.

Isaiah 51:12

51:12 “I, I am the one who consoles you. ² 

Why are you afraid of mortal men,

of mere human beings who are as short-lived as grass? ³ 

Isaiah 57:15

57:15 For this is what the high and exalted one says,

the one who rules ⁴  forever, whose name is holy:

“I dwell in an exalted and holy place,

but also with the discouraged and humiliated, ⁵ 

in order to cheer up the humiliated

and to encourage the discouraged. ⁶ 

Isaiah 61:1-2

The Lord Will Rejuvenate His People

61:1 The spirit of the sovereign Lord is upon me,

because the Lord has chosen ⁷  me. ⁸ 

He has commissioned ⁹  me to encourage ¹⁰  the poor,

to help ¹¹  the brokenhearted,

to decree the release of captives,

and the freeing of prisoners,

61:2 to announce the year when the Lord will show his favor,

the day when our God will seek vengeance, ¹² 

to console all who mourn,

Isaiah 66:13

66:13 As a mother consoles a child, ¹³ 

so I will console you,

and you will be consoled over Jerusalem.”

Romans 15:13

15:13 Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you believe in him, ¹⁴  so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Romans 15:2

15:2 Let each of us please his neighbor for his good to build him up.

Colossians 1:3-6

Paul’s Thanksgiving and Prayer for the Church

1:3 We always ¹⁵  give thanks to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, 1:4 since ¹⁶  we heard about your faith in Christ Jesus and the love that you have for all the saints. 1:5 Your faith and love have arisen ¹⁷  from the hope laid up ¹⁸  for you in heaven, which you have heard about in the message of truth, the gospel ¹⁹  1:6 that has come to you. Just as in the entire world this gospel ²⁰  is bearing fruit and growing, so it has also been bearing fruit and growing ²¹  among you from the first day you heard it and understood the grace of God in truth.

[51:3]  ¹ tn Heb “found in” (so NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV).

[51:12]  ² tc The plural suffix should probably be emended to the second masculine singular (which is used in v. 13). The final mem (ם) is probably dittographic; note the mem at the beginning of the next word.

[51:12]  ³ tn Heb “Who are you that you are afraid of man who dies, and of the son of man who [as] grass is given up?” The feminine singular forms should probably be emended to the masculine singular (see v. 13). They have probably been influenced by the construction אַתְּ־הִיא (’at-hi’) in vv. 9-10.

[57:15]  ⁴ tn Heb “the one who dwells forever.” שֹׁכֵן עַד (shokhen ’ad) is sometimes translated “the one who lives forever,” and understood as a reference to God’s eternal existence. However, the immediately preceding and following descriptions (“high and exalted” and “holy”) emphasize his sovereign rule. In the next line, he declares, “I dwell in an exalted and holy [place],” which refers to the place from which he rules. Therefore it is more likely that שֹׁכֵן עַד (shokhen ’ad) means “I dwell [in my lofty palace] forever” and refers to God’s eternal kingship.

[57:15]  ⁵ tn Heb “and also with the crushed and lowly of spirit.” This may refer to the repentant who have humbled themselves (see 66:2) or more generally to the exiles who have experienced discouragement and humiliation.

[57:15]  ⁶ tn Heb “to restore the lowly of spirit and to restore the heart of the crushed.”

[61:1]  ⁷ tn Heb “anointed,” i.e., designated to carry out an assigned task.

[61:1]  ⁸ sn The speaker is not identified, but he is distinct from the Lord and from Zion’s suffering people. He possesses the divine spirit, is God’s spokesman, and is sent to release prisoners from bondage. The evidence suggests he is the Lord’s special servant, described earlier in the servant songs (see 42:1-4, 7; 49:2, 9; 50:4; see also 51:16).

[61:1]  ⁹ tn Or “sent” (NAB); NCV “has appointed me.”

[61:1]  ¹⁰ tn Or “proclaim good news to.”

[61:1]  ¹¹ tn Heb “to bind up [the wounds of].”

[61:2]  ¹² tn Heb “to announce the year of the Lord’s favor, and the day of our God’s vengeance.

[66:13]  ¹³ tn Heb “like a man whose mother comforts him.”

[15:13]  ¹⁴ tn Grk “in the believing” or “as [you] believe,” with the object “him” supplied from the context. The referent could be God (15:13a) or Christ (15:12).

[1:3]  ¹⁵ tn The adverb πάντοτε (pantote) is understood to modify the indicative εὐχαριστοῦμεν (eucaristoumen) because it precedes περὶ ὑμῶν (peri Jumwn) which probably modifies the indicative and not the participle προσευχόμενοι (proseucomenoi). But see 1:9 where the same expression occurs and περὶ ὑμῶν modifies the participle “praying” (προσευχόμενοι).

[1:4]  ¹⁶ tn The adverbial participle ἀκούσαντες (akousante") is understood to be temporal and translated with “since.” A causal idea may also be in the apostle’s mind, but the context emphasizes temporal ideas, e.g., “from the day” (v. 6).

[1:5]  ¹⁷ tn Col 1:3-8 form one long sentence in the Greek text and have been divided at the end of v. 4 and v. 6 and within v. 6 for clarity, in keeping with the tendency in contemporary English toward shorter sentences. Thus the phrase “Your faith and love have arisen from the hope” is literally “because of the hope.” The perfect tense “have arisen” was chosen in the English to reflect the fact that the recipients of the letter had acquired this hope at conversion in the past, but that it still remains and motivates them to trust in Christ and to love one another.

[1:5]  ¹⁸ tn BDAG 113 s.v. ἀπόκειμαι 2 renders ἀποκειμένην (apokeimenhn) with the expression “reserved” in this verse.

[1:5]  ¹⁹ tn The term “the gospel” (τοῦ εὐαγγελίου, tou euangeliou) is in apposition to “the word of truth” (τῷ λόγῳ τῆς ἀληθείας, tw logw th" alhqeia") as indicated in the translation.

[1:6]  ²⁰ tn Grk “just as in the entire world it is bearing fruit.” The antecedent (“the gospel”) of the implied subject (“it”) of ἐστιν (estin) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[1:6]  ²¹ tn Though the participles are periphrastic with the present tense verb ἐστίν (estin), the presence of the temporal indicator “from the day” in the next clause indicates that this is a present tense that reaches into the past and should be translated as “has been bearing fruit and growing.” For a discussion of this use of the present tense, see ExSyn 519-20.