Acts 20:25-27

20:25 “And now ¹  I know that none ²  of you among whom I went around proclaiming the kingdom ³  will see me ⁴  again. 20:26 Therefore I declare ⁵  to you today that I am innocent ⁶  of the blood of you all. ⁷  20:27 For I did not hold back from ⁸  announcing ⁹  to you the whole purpose ¹⁰  of God.

[20:25]  ¹ tn Grk “And now, behold.” Here ἰδού (idou) has not been translated.

[20:25]  ² 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]  ³ 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]  ⁴ tn Grk “will see my face” (an idiom for seeing someone in person).

[20:26]  ⁵ tn Or “testify.”

[20:26]  ⁶ tn Grk “clean, pure,” thus “guiltless” (BDAG 489 s.v. καθαρός 3.a).

[20:26]  ⁷ 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]  ⁸ 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]  ⁹ tn Or “proclaiming,” “declaring.”

[20:27]  ¹⁰ tn Or “plan.”