Acts 20:31-38

20:31 Therefore be alert, ¹  remembering that night and day for three years I did not stop warning ²  each one of you with tears. 20:32 And now I entrust ³  you to God and to the message ⁴  of his grace. This message ⁵  is able to build you up and give you an inheritance among all those who are sanctified. 20:33 I have desired ⁶  no one’s silver or gold or clothing. 20:34 You yourselves know that these hands of mine ⁷  provided for my needs and the needs of those who were with me. 20:35 By all these things, ⁸  I have shown you that by working in this way we must help ⁹  the weak, ¹⁰  and remember the words of the Lord Jesus that he himself said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’” ¹¹ 

20:36 When ¹²  he had said these things, he knelt down ¹³  with them all and prayed. 20:37 They all began to weep loudly, ¹⁴  and hugged ¹⁵  Paul and kissed him, ¹⁶  20:38 especially saddened ¹⁷  by what ¹⁸  he had said, that they were not going to see him ¹⁹  again. Then they accompanied ²⁰  him to the ship.

[20:31]  ¹ tn Or “be watchful.”

[20:31]  ² tn Or “admonishing.”

[20:32]  ³ tn Or “commend.” BDAG 772 s.v. παρατίθημι 3.b has “τινά τινι entrust someone to the care or protection of someone…Of divine protection παρέθεντο αὐτοὺς τῷ κυρίῳ Ac 14:23; cp. 20:32.”

[20:32]  ⁴ tn Grk “word.”

[20:32]  ⁵ tn Grk “the message of his grace, which.” The phrase τῷ δυναμένῳ οἰκοδομῆσαι… (tw dunamenw oikodomhsai…) refers to τῷ λόγω (tw logw), not τῆς χάριτος (ths caritos); in English it could refer to either “the message” or “grace,” but in Greek, because of agreement in gender, the referent can only be “the message.” To make this clear, a new sentence was begun in the translation and the referent “the message” was repeated at the beginning of this new sentence.

[20:33]  ⁶ tn Traditionally, “coveted.” BDAG 371 s.v. ἐπιθυμέω 1 has “to have a strong desire to do or secure someth., desire, long for w. gen. of the thing desired…silver, gold, clothing Ac 20:33.” The traditional term “covet” is not in common usage and difficult for many modern English readers to understand. The statement affirms Paul’s integrity. He was not doing this for personal financial gain.

[20:34]  ⁷ tn The words “of mine” are not in the Greek text, but are supplied to clarify whose hands Paul is referring to.

[20:35]  ⁸ sn The expression By all these things means “In everything I did.”

[20:35]  ⁹ tn Or “must assist.”

[20:35]  ¹⁰ tn Or “the sick.” See Eph 4:28.

[20:35]  ¹¹ sn The saying is similar to Matt 10:8. Service and generosity should be abundant. Interestingly, these exact words are not found in the gospels. Paul must have known of this saying from some other source.

[20:36]  ¹² tn Grk “And when.” Because of the difference between Greek style, which often begins sentences or clauses with “and,” and English style, which generally does not, καί (kai) has not been translated here.

[20:36]  ¹³ tn Grk “kneeling down…he prayed.” The participle θείς (qeis) has been translated as a finite verb due to requirements of contemporary English style.

[20:37]  ¹⁴ tn Grk “weeping a great deal,” thus “loudly” (BDAG 472 s.v. ἱκανός and BDAG 546 s.v. κλαυθμός).

[20:37]  ¹⁵ tn Grk “fell on Paul’s neck” (an idiom, see BDAG 1014 s.v. τράχηλος).

[20:37]  ¹⁶ sn The Ephesians elders kissed Paul as a sign of both affection and farewell. The entire scene shows how much interrelationship Paul had in his ministry and how much he and the Ephesians meant to each other.

[20:38]  ¹⁷ tn Or “pained.”

[20:38]  ¹⁸ tn Grk “by the word that he had said.”

[20:38]  ¹⁹ tn Grk “to see his face” (an idiom for seeing someone in person).

[20:38]  ²⁰ tn BDAG 873 s.v. προπέμπω 1 has “they accompanied him to the ship Ac 20:38.”