Acts 20:20-27

20:20 You know that I did not hold back from proclaiming ¹  to you anything that would be helpful, ²  and from teaching you publicly ³  and from house to house, 20:21 testifying ⁴  to both Jews and Greeks about repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus. ⁵  20:22 And now, ⁶  compelled ⁷  by the Spirit, I am going to Jerusalem ⁸  without knowing what will happen to me there, ⁹  20:23 except ¹⁰  that the Holy Spirit warns ¹¹  me in town after town ¹²  that ¹³  imprisonment ¹⁴  and persecutions ¹⁵  are waiting for me. 20:24 But I do not consider my life ¹⁶  worth anything ¹⁷  to myself, so that ¹⁸  I may finish my task ¹⁹  and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the good news ²⁰  of God’s grace.

20:25 “And now ²¹  I know that none ²²  of you among whom I went around proclaiming the kingdom ²³  will see me ²⁴  again. 20:26 Therefore I declare ²⁵  to you today that I am innocent ²⁶  of the blood of you all. ²⁷  20:27 For I did not hold back from ²⁸  announcing ²⁹  to you the whole purpose ³⁰  of God.

Revelation 11:18

11:18 The ³¹  nations ³²  were enraged,

but ³³  your wrath has come,

and the time has come for the dead to be judged,

and the time has come to give to your servants, ³⁴ 

the prophets, their reward,

as well as to the saints

and to those who revere ³⁵  your name, both small and great,

and the time has come ³⁶  to destroy those who destroy ³⁷  the earth.”

Revelation 20:12

20:12 And I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne. Then ³⁸  books were opened, and another book was opened – the book of life. ³⁹  So ⁴⁰  the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to their deeds. ⁴¹ 

[20:20]  ¹ tn Or “declaring.”

[20:20]  ² tn Or “profitable.” BDAG 960 s.v. συμφέρω 2.b.α has “τὰ συμφέροντα what advances your best interests or what is good for you Ac 20:20,” but the broader meaning (s.v. 2, “to be advantageous, help, confer a benefit, be profitable/useful”) is equally possible in this context.

[20:20]  ³ tn Or “openly.”

[20:21]  ⁴ tn BDAG 233 s.v. διαμαρτύρομαι 1 has “testify of, bear witness to (orig. under oath)…of repentance to Judeans and Hellenes Ac 20:21.”

[20:21]  ⁵ tc Several mss, including some of the more important ones (Ì⁷⁴ א Α C [D] E 33 36 323 945 1175 1241 1505 1739 pm and a number of versions), read Χριστόν (Criston, “Christ”) at the end of this verse. This word is lacking in B H L P Ψ 614 pm. Although the inclusion is supported by many earlier and better mss, internal evidence is on the side of the omission: In Acts, both “Lord Jesus” and “Lord Jesus Christ” occur, though between 16:31 and the end of the book “Lord Jesus Christ” appears only in 28:31, perhaps as a kind of climactic assertion. Thus, the shorter reading is to be preferred.

[20:22]  ⁶ tn Grk “And now, behold.” Here ἰδού (idou) has not been translated.

[20:22]  ⁷ tn Grk “bound.”

[20:22]  ⁸ sn This journey to Jerusalem suggests a parallel between Paul and Jesus, since the “Jerusalem journey” motif figures so prominently in Luke’s Gospel (9:51-19:44).

[20:22]  ⁹ tn BDAG 965 s.v. συναντάω 2 has τὰ ἐν αὐτῇ συναντήσοντα ἐμοὶ μὴ εἰδώς without knowing what will happen to me there Ac 20:22.”

[20:23]  ¹⁰ tn BDAG 826 s.v. πλήν 1.d has “πλὴν ὅτι except that…Ac 20:23.”

[20:23]  ¹¹ tn The verb διαμαρτύρομαι (diamarturomai) can mean “warn” (BDAG 233 s.v. διαμαρτύρομαι 2 has “solemnly urge, exhort, warn…w. dat. of pers. addressed”), and this meaning better fits the context here, although BDAG categorizes Acts 20:23 under the meaning “testify of, bear witness to” (s.v. 1).

[20:23]  ¹² tn The Greek text here reads κατὰ πόλιν (kata polin).

[20:23]  ¹³ tn Grk “saying that,” but the participle λέγον (legon) is redundant in English and has not been translated.

[20:23]  ¹⁴ tn Grk “bonds.”

[20:23]  ¹⁵ tn Or “troubles,” “suffering.” See Acts 19:21; 21:4, 11.

[20:24]  ¹⁶ tn Grk “soul.”

[20:24]  ¹⁷ tn Or “I do not consider my life worth a single word.” According to BDAG 599 s.v. λόγος 1.a.α, “In the textually uncertain pass. Ac 20:24 the text as it stands in N., οὐδενὸς λόγου (v.l. λόγον) ποιοῦμαι τὴν ψυχὴν τιμίαν, may well mean: I do not consider my life worth a single word (cp. λόγου ἄξιον [ἄξιος 1a] and our ‘worth mention’).”

[20:24]  ¹⁸ tn BDAG 1106 s.v. ὡς 9 describes this use as “a final particle, expressing intention/purpose, with a view to, in order to.”

[20:24]  ¹⁹ tn Grk “course.” See L&N 42.26, “(a figurative extension of meaning of δρόμος ‘race’) a task or function involving continuity, serious, effort, and possibly obligation – ‘task, mission’…Ac 20:24.” On this Pauline theme see also Phil 1:19-26; Col 1:24; 2 Tim 4:6-7.

[20:24]  ²⁰ tn Or “to the gospel.”

[20:25]  ²¹ tn Grk “And now, behold.” Here ἰδού (idou) has not been translated.

[20:25]  ²² tn Grk “all of you…will not see.” Greek handles its negation somewhat differently from English, and the translation follows English grammatical conventions.

[20:25]  ²³ sn Note how Paul’s usage of the expression proclaiming the kingdom is associated with (and intertwined with) his testifying to the good news of God’s grace in v. 24. For Paul the two concepts were interrelated.

[20:25]  ²⁴ tn Grk “will see my face” (an idiom for seeing someone in person).

[20:26]  ²⁵ tn Or “testify.”

[20:26]  ²⁶ tn Grk “clean, pure,” thus “guiltless” (BDAG 489 s.v. καθαρός 3.a).

[20:26]  ²⁷ tn That is, “that if any of you should be lost, I am not responsible” (an idiom). According to L&N 33.223, the meaning of the phrase “that I am innocent of the blood of all of you” is “that if any of you should be lost, I am not responsible.” However, due to the length of this phrase and its familiarity to many modern English readers, the translation was kept closer to formal equivalence in this case. The word “you” is not in the Greek text, but is implied; Paul is addressing the Ephesian congregation (in the person of its elders) in both v. 25 and 27.

[20:27]  ²⁸ tn Or “did not avoid.” BDAG 1041 s.v. ὑποστέλλω 2.b has “shrink from, avoid implying fear…οὐ γὰρ ὑπεστειλάμην τοῦ μὴ ἀναγγεῖλαι I did not shrink from proclaiming Ac 20:27”; L&N 13.160 has “to hold oneself back from doing something, with the implication of some fearful concern – ‘to hold back from, to shrink from, to avoid’…‘for I have not held back from announcing to you the whole purpose of God’ Ac 20:27.”

[20:27]  ²⁹ tn Or “proclaiming,” “declaring.”

[20:27]  ³⁰ tn Or “plan.”

[11:18]  ³¹ tn Here καί (kai) has not been translated because of differences between Greek and English style.

[11:18]  ³² tn Or “The Gentiles” (the same Greek word may be translated “Gentiles” or “nations”).

[11:18]  ³³ tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “but” to indicate the contrast present in this context.

[11:18]  ³⁴ tn See the note on the word “servants” in 1:1.

[11:18]  ³⁵ tn Grk “who fear.”

[11:18]  ³⁶ tn The words “the time has come” do not occur except at the beginning of the verse; the phrase has been repeated for emphasis and contrast. The Greek has one finite verb (“has come”) with a compound subject (“your wrath,” “the time”), followed by three infinitive clauses (“to be judged,” “to give,” “to destroy”). The rhetorical power of the repetition of the finite verb in English thus emulates the rhetorical power of its lone instance in Greek.

[11:18]  ³⁷ tn Or “who deprave.” There is a possible wordplay here on two meanings for διαφθείρω (diafqeirw), with the first meaning “destroy” and the second meaning either “to ruin” or “to make morally corrupt.” See L&N 20.40.

[20:12]  ³⁸ tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “then” to indicate the implied sequence of events within the vision.

[20:12]  ³⁹ tn Grk “another book was opened, which is of life.”

[20:12]  ⁴⁰ tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “so” to indicate the implied result of the books being opened.

[20:12]  ⁴¹ tn Grk “from the things written in the books according to their works.”