Colossians 1:2

1:2 to the saints, the faithful ¹  brothers and sisters ²  in Christ, at Colossae. Grace and peace to you ³  from God our Father! ⁴ 

Colossians 4:7

Personal Greetings and Instructions

4:7 Tychicus, a dear brother, faithful minister, and fellow slave ⁵  in the Lord, will tell you all the news about me. ⁶ 

Colossians 4:9

4:9 I sent him ⁷  with Onesimus, the faithful and dear brother, who is one of you. ⁸  They will tell ⁹  you about everything here.

Colossians 1:5

1:5 Your faith and love have arisen ¹⁰  from the hope laid up ¹¹  for you in heaven, which you have heard about in the message of truth, the gospel ¹² 

Colossians 3:13

3:13 bearing with one another and forgiving ¹³  one another, if someone happens to have ¹⁴  a complaint against anyone else. Just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also forgive others. ¹⁵ 

Colossians 4:16

4:16 And after ¹⁶  you have read this letter, have it read ¹⁷  to the church of Laodicea. In turn, read the letter from Laodicea ¹⁸  as well.

Colossians 1:6

1:6 that has come to you. Just as in the entire world this gospel ¹⁹  is bearing fruit and growing, so it has also been bearing fruit and growing ²⁰  among you from the first day you heard it and understood the grace of God in truth.

Colossians 1:27

1:27 God wanted to make known to them the glorious ²¹  riches of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.

Colossians 2:5

2:5 For though ²²  I am absent from you in body, I am present with you in spirit, rejoicing to see ²³  your morale ²⁴  and the firmness of your faith in Christ.

Colossians 3:16

3:16 Let the word of Christ ²⁵  dwell in you richly, teaching and exhorting one another with all wisdom, singing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, all with grace ²⁶  in your hearts to God.

[1:2]  ¹ tn Grk “and faithful.” The construction in Greek (as well as Paul’s style) suggests that the saints are identical to the faithful; hence, the καί (kai) is best left untranslated (cf. Eph 1:1). See ExSyn 281-82.

[1:2]  ² tn Grk “brothers,” but the Greek word may be used for “brothers and sisters” or “fellow Christians” as here (cf. BDAG 18 s.v. ἀδελφός 1, where considerable nonbiblical evidence for the plural ἀδελφοί [adelfoi] meaning “brothers and sisters” is cited).

[1:2]  ³ tn Or “Grace to you and peace.”

[1:2]  ⁴ tc Most witnesses, including some important ones (א A C F G I [P] 075 Ï it bo), read “and the Lord Jesus Christ” at the end of this verse, no doubt to conform the wording to the typical Pauline salutation. However, excellent and early witnesses (B D K L Ψ 33 81 1175 1505 1739 1881 al sa) lack this phrase. Since the omission is inexplicable as arising from the longer reading (otherwise, these mss would surely have deleted the phrase in the rest of the corpus Paulinum), it is surely authentic.

[4:7]  ⁵ tn See the note on “fellow slave” in 1:7.

[4:7]  ⁶ tn Grk “all things according to me.”

[4:9]  ⁹ tn The Greek sentence continues v. 9 with the phrase “with Onesimus,” but this is awkward in English, so the verb “I sent” was inserted and a new sentence started at the beginning of v. 9 in the translation.

[4:9]  ¹⁰ tn Grk “is of you.”

[4:9]  ¹¹ tn Grk “will make known to you.” This has been simplified in the translation to “will tell.”

[1:5]  ¹³ 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]  ¹⁴ tn BDAG 113 s.v. ἀπόκειμαι 2 renders ἀποκειμένην (apokeimenhn) with the expression “reserved” in this verse.

[1:5]  ¹⁵ 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.

[3:13]  ¹⁷ tn For the translation of χαριζόμενοι (carizomenoi) as “forgiving,” see BDAG 1078 s.v. χαρίζομαι 3. The two participles “bearing” (ἀνεχόμενοι, anecomenoi) and “forgiving” (χαριζόμενοι) express the means by which the action of the finite verb “clothe yourselves” is to be carried out.

[3:13]  ¹⁸ tn Grk “if someone has”; the term “happens,” though not in the Greek text, is inserted to bring out the force of the third class condition.

[3:13]  ¹⁹ tn The expression “forgive others” is not in the Greek text, but is implied. It is included in the translation to make the sentence complete and more comprehensible to the English reader.

[4:16]  ²¹ tn Grk “when.”

[4:16]  ²² tn The construction beginning with the imperative ποιήσατε ἵνα…ἀναγνωσθῇ (poihsate Jina…anagnwsqh) should be translated as “have it read” where the conjunction ἵνα functions to mark off its clause as the direct object of the imperative ποιήσατε. The content of the clause (“reading the letter”) is what Paul commands with the imperative ποιήσατε. Thus the translation “have it read” has been used here.

[4:16]  ²³ sn This letter is otherwise unknown, but some have suggested that it is the letter known today as Ephesians.

[1:6]  ²⁵ 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]  ²⁶ 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.

[1:27]  ²⁹ tn The genitive noun τῆς δόξης (ths doxhs) is an attributive genitive and has therefore been translated as “glorious riches.”

[2:5]  ³³ tn The conditional particle εἰ (ei) together with καί (kai) here indicates a first class condition in Greek and carries a concessive force, especially when seen in contrast to the following phrase which begins with ἀλλά (alla).

[2:5]  ³⁴ tn Grk “rejoicing and seeing.”

[2:5]  ³⁵ tn The Greek word τάξις can mean “order,” “discipline,” or even “unbroken ranks” (REB).

[3:16]  ³⁷ tc Since “the word of Christ” occurs nowhere else in the NT, two predictable variants arose: “word of God” and “word of the Lord.” Even though some of the witnesses for these variants are impressive (κυρίου [kuriou, “of the Lord”] in א* I 1175 pc bo; θεοῦ [qeou, “of God”] in A C* 33 104 323 945 al), the reading Χριστοῦ (Cristou, “of Christ”) is read by an excellent cross-section of witnesses (Ì⁴⁶ א² B C² D F G Ψ 075 1739 1881 Ï lat sa). On both internal and external grounds, Χριστοῦ is strongly preferred.

[3:16]  ³⁸ tn Grk “with grace”; “all” is supplied as it is implicitly related to all the previous instructions in the verse.