Deuteronomy 18:15-19

18:15 The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you – from your fellow Israelites; ¹  you must listen to him. 18:16 This accords with what happened at Horeb in the day of the assembly. You asked the Lord your God: “Please do not make us hear the voice of the Lord our ²  God any more or see this great fire any more lest we die.” 18:17 The Lord then said to me, “What they have said is good. 18:18 I will raise up a prophet like you for them from among their fellow Israelites. I will put my words in his mouth and he will speak to them whatever I command. 18:19 I will personally hold responsible ³  anyone who then pays no attention to the words that prophet ⁴  speaks in my name.

Psalms 2:12

2:12 Give sincere homage! ⁵ 

Otherwise he ⁶  will be angry, ⁷ 

and you will die because of your behavior, ⁸ 

when his anger quickly ignites. ⁹ 

How blessed ¹⁰  are all who take shelter in him! ¹¹ 

Mark 9:7

9:7 Then ¹²  a cloud ¹³  overshadowed them, ¹⁴  and a voice came from the cloud, “This is my one dear Son. ¹⁵  Listen to him!” ¹⁶ 

John 6:29

6:29 Jesus replied, ¹⁷  “This is the deed ¹⁸  God requires ¹⁹  – to believe in the one whom he ²⁰  sent.”

John 14:1

Jesus’ Parting Words to His Disciples

14:1 “Do not let your hearts be distressed. ²¹  You believe in God; ²²  believe also in me.

John 17:3

17:3 Now this ²³  is eternal life ²⁴  – that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, ²⁵  whom you sent.

Acts 16:31

16:31 They replied, ²⁶  “Believe ²⁷  in the Lord Jesus ²⁸  and you will be saved, you and your household.”

Acts 16:1

Timothy Joins Paul and Silas

16:1 He also came to Derbe ²⁹  and to Lystra. ³⁰  A disciple ³¹  named Timothy was there, the son of a Jewish woman who was a believer, ³²  but whose father was a Greek. ³³ 

Acts 1:15

1:15 In those days ³⁴  Peter stood up among the believers ³⁵  (a gathering of about one hundred and twenty people) and said,

[18:15]  ¹ tc The MT expands here on the usual formula by adding “from among you” (cf. Deut 17:15; 18:18; Smr; a number of Greek texts). The expansion seems to be for the purpose of emphasis, i.e., the prophet to come must be not just from Israel but an Israelite by blood.

[18:16]  ² tn The Hebrew text uses the collective singular in this verse: “my God…lest I die.”

[18:19]  ³ tn Heb “will seek from him”; NAB “I myself will make him answer for it”; NRSV “will hold accountable.”

[18:19]  ⁴ tn Heb “he”; the referent (the prophet mentioned in v. 18) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[2:12]  ⁵ tn Traditionally, “kiss the son” (KJV). But בַּר (bar) is the Aramaic word for “son,” not the Hebrew. For this reason many regard the reading as suspect. Some propose emendations of vv. 11b-12a. One of the more popular proposals is to read בִּרְעָדָה נַשְּׁקוּ לְרַגְלָיו (bir’adah nashÿqu lÿraslayv, “in trembling kiss his feet”). It makes better sense to understand בַּר (bar) as an adjective meaning “pure” (see Pss 24:4; 73:1 and BDB 141 s.v. בַּר 3) functioning here in an adverbial sense. If read this way, then the syntactical structure of exhortation (imperative followed by adverbial modifier) corresponds to the two preceding lines (see v. 11). The verb נָשַׁק (nashaq, “kiss”) refers metonymically to showing homage (see 1 Sam 10:1; Hos 13:2). The exhortation in v. 12a advocates a genuine expression of allegiance and warns against insincerity. When swearing allegiance, vassal kings would sometimes do so insincerely, with the intent of rebelling when the time was right. The so-called “Vassal Treaties of Esarhaddon” also warn against such an attitude. In this treaty the vassal is told: “If you, as you stand on the soil where this oath [is sworn], swear the oath with your words and lips [only], do not swear with your entire heart, do not transmit it to your sons who will live after this treaty, if you take this curse upon yourselves but do not plan to keep the treaty of Esarhaddon…may your sons and grandsons because of this fear in the future” (see J. B. Pritchard, ed., The Ancient Near East, 2:62).

[2:12]  ⁶ tn Throughout the translation of this verse the third person masculine pronouns refer to the Lord (cf. v. 11).

[2:12]  ⁷ tn The implied subject of the verb is the Lord, mentioned in v. 11. Elsewhere the subject of this verb is consistently the Lord, suggesting it may be a technical term for divine anger. Anger is here used metonymically for judgment, as the following statement makes clear. A Moabite cognate occurs in the Mesha inscription, where it is used of the Moabite god Chemosh’s anger at his people (see J. B. Pritchard, ed., The Ancient Near East, 1:209).

[2:12]  ⁸ tn Heb “and you will perish [in the] way.” The Hebrew word דֶּרֶךְ (derekh, “way”) here refers to their rebellious behavior (not to a pathway, as often understood). It functions syntactically as an adverbial accusative in relation to the verb “perish.”

[2:12]  ⁹ tn Or “burns.” The Lord’s anger is compared here to fire, the most destructive force known in ancient Israel.

[2:12]  ¹⁰ tn The Hebrew noun is an abstract plural. The word often refers metonymically to the happiness that God-given security and prosperity produce (see Pss 1:1; 34:9; 41:1; 65:4; 84:12; 89:15; 106:3; 112:1; 127:5; 128:1; 144:15).

[2:12]  ¹¹ sn Who take shelter in him. “Taking shelter” in the Lord is an idiom for seeking his protection. Seeking his protection presupposes and even demonstrates the subject’s loyalty to the Lord. In the psalms those who “take shelter” in the Lord are contrasted with the wicked and equated with those who love, fear, and serve the Lord (Pss 5:11-12; 31:17-20; 34:21-22).

[9:7]  ¹² tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “then” to indicate the implied sequence of events within the narrative.

[9:7]  ¹³ sn This cloud is the cloud of God’s presence and the voice is his as well.

[9:7]  ¹⁴ tn Grk “And there came a cloud, surrounding them.”

[9:7]  ¹⁵ tn Grk “my beloved Son,” or “my Son, the beloved [one].” The force of ἀγαπητός (agaphtos) is often “pertaining to one who is the only one of his or her class, but at the same time is particularly loved and cherished” (L&N 58.53; cf. also BDAG 7 s.v. 1).

[9:7]  ¹⁶ sn The expression listen to him comes from Deut 18:15 and makes two points: 1) Jesus is a prophet like Moses, a leader-prophet, and 2) they have much yet to learn from him.

[6:29]  ¹⁷ tn Grk “answered and said to them.”

[6:29]  ¹⁸ tn Grk “the work.”

[6:29]  ¹⁹ tn Grk “This is the work of God.”

[6:29]  ²⁰ tn Grk “that one” (i.e., God).

[14:1]  ²¹ sn The same verb is used to describe Jesus’ own state in John 11:33, 12:27, and 13:21. Jesus is looking ahead to the events of the evening and the next day, his arrest, trials, crucifixion, and death, which will cause his disciples extreme emotional distress.

[14:1]  ²² tn Or “Believe in God.” The translation of the two uses of πιστεύετε (pisteuete) is difficult. Both may be either indicative or imperative, and as L. Morris points out (John [NICNT], 637), this results in a bewildering variety of possibilities. To complicate matters further, the first may be understood as a question: “Do you believe in God? Believe also in me.” Morris argues against the KJV translation which renders the first πιστεύετε as indicative and the second as imperative on the grounds that for the writer of the Fourth Gospel, faith in Jesus is inseparable from faith in God. But this is precisely the point that Jesus is addressing in context. He is about to undergo rejection by his own people as their Messiah. The disciples’ faith in him as Messiah and Lord would be cast into extreme doubt by these events, which the author makes clear were not at this time foreseen by the disciples. After the resurrection it is this identification between Jesus and the Father which needs to be reaffirmed (cf. John 20:24-29). Thus it seems best to take the first πιστεύετε as indicative and the second as imperative, producing the translation “You believe in God; believe also in me.”

[17:3]  ²³ tn Using αὕτη δέ (Jauth de) to introduce an explanation is typical Johannine style; it was used before in John 1:19, 3:19, and 15:12.

[17:3]  ²⁴ sn This is eternal life. The author here defines eternal life for the readers, although it is worked into the prayer in such a way that many interpreters do not regard it as another of the author’s parenthetical comments. It is not just unending life in the sense of prolonged duration. Rather it is a quality of life, with its quality derived from a relationship with God. Having eternal life is here defined as being in relationship with the Father, the one true God, and Jesus Christ whom the Father sent. Christ (Χριστός, Cristos) is not characteristically attached to Jesus’ name in John’s Gospel; it occurs elsewhere primarily as a title and is used with Jesus’ name only in 1:17. But that is connected to its use here: The statement here in 17:3 enables us to correlate the statement made in 1:18 of the prologue, that Jesus has fully revealed what God is like, with Jesus’ statement in 10:10 that he has come that people might have life, and have it abundantly. These two purposes are really one, according to 17:3, because (abundant) eternal life is defined as knowing (being in relationship with) the Father and the Son. The only way to gain this eternal life, that is, to obtain this knowledge of the Father, is through the Son (cf. 14:6). Although some have pointed to the use of know (γινώσκω, ginwskw) here as evidence of Gnostic influence in the Fourth Gospel, there is a crucial difference: For John this knowledge is not intellectual, but relational. It involves being in relationship.

[17:3]  ²⁵ tn Or “and Jesus the Messiah” (Both Greek “Christ” and Hebrew and Aramaic “Messiah” mean “one who has been anointed”).

[16:31]  ²⁶ tn Grk “said.”

[16:31]  ²⁷ sn Here the summary term of response is a call to believe. In this context it refers to trusting the sovereign God’s power to deliver, which events had just pictured for the jailer.

[16:31]  ²⁸ tc The majority of mss add Χριστόν (Criston, “Christ”) here (C D E Ψ 1739 Ï sy sa), but the best and earliest witnesses read simply τὸν κύριον ᾿Ιησοῦν (ton kurion Ihsoun, “the Lord Jesus”; Ì^74vid א A B 33 81 pc bo). The addition of “Christ” to “Lord Jesus” is an obviously motivated reading. Thus on both external and internal grounds, the shorter reading is strongly preferred.

[16:1]  ²⁹ sn Derbe was a city in Lycaonia about 35 mi (60 km) southeast of Lystra. It was about 90 mi (145 km) from Tarsus.

[16:1]  ³⁰ sn Lystra was a city in Lycaonia about 25 mi (40 km) south of Iconium.

[16:1]  ³¹ tn Grk “And behold, a disciple.” Here ἰδού (idou) has not been translated.

[16:1]  ³² tn L&N 31.103 translates this phrase “the son of a Jewish woman who was a believer.”

[16:1]  ³³ sn His father was a Greek. Timothy was the offspring of a mixed marriage between a Jewish woman (see 2 Tim 1:5) and a Gentile man. On mixed marriages in Judaism, see Neh 13:23-27; Ezra 9:1-10:44; Mal 2:10-16; Jub. 30:7-17; m. Qiddushin 3.12; m. Yevamot 7.5.

[1:15]  ³⁴ tn Grk “And in those days.” 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.

[1:15]  ³⁵ tn Or “brethren” (but the term includes both male and female believers present in this gathering, as indicated by those named in vv. 13-14).