Deuteronomy 7:8

7:8 Rather it is because of his ¹  love ²  for you and his faithfulness to the promise ³  he solemnly vowed ⁴  to your ancestors ⁵  that the Lord brought you out with great power, ⁶  redeeming ⁷  you from the place of slavery, from the power ⁸  of Pharaoh king of Egypt.

Deuteronomy 23:5

23:5 But the Lord your God refused to listen to Balaam and changed ⁹  the curse to a blessing, for the Lord your God loves ¹⁰  you.

John 13:1

Washing the Disciples’ Feet

13:1 Just before the Passover feast, Jesus knew that his time ¹¹  had come to depart ¹²  from this world to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he now loved them to the very end. ¹³ 

John 13:34

13:34 “I give you a new commandment – to love ¹⁴  one another. Just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. ¹⁵ 

John 15:9

15:9 “Just as the Father has loved me, I have also loved you; remain ¹⁶  in my love.

Romans 8:37

8:37 No, in all these things we have complete victory ¹⁷  through him ¹⁸  who loved us!

Galatians 2:20

2:20 I have been crucified with Christ, ¹⁹  and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So ²⁰  the life I now live in the body, ²¹  I live because of the faithfulness of the Son of God, ²²  who loved me and gave himself for me.

Ephesians 2:4

2:4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of his great love with which he loved us,

Ephesians 5:2

5:2 and live ²³  in love, just as Christ also loved us ²⁴  and gave himself for us, a sacrificial and fragrant offering ²⁵  to God.

Ephesians 5:25-27

5:25 Husbands, love your ²⁶  wives just as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her 5:26 to sanctify her by cleansing her ²⁷  with the washing of the water by the word, 5:27 so that he ²⁸  may present the church to himself as glorious – not having a stain or wrinkle, or any such blemish, but holy and blameless. ²⁹ 

Ephesians 5:1

Live in Love

5:1 Therefore, be ³⁰  imitators of God as dearly loved children

Ephesians 4:10

4:10 He, the very one ³¹  who descended, is also the one who ascended above all the heavens, in order to fill all things.

[7:8]  ¹ tn Heb “the Lord’s.” See note on “He” in 7:6.

[7:8]  ² tn For the verb אָהַב (’ahav, “to love”) as a term of choice or election, see note on the word “loved” in Deut 4:37.

[7:8]  ³ tn Heb “oath.” This is a reference to the promises of the so-called “Abrahamic Covenant” (cf. Gen 15:13-16).

[7:8]  ⁴ tn Heb “swore on oath.”

[7:8]  ⁵ tn Heb “fathers” (also in vv. 12, 13).

[7:8]  ⁶ tn Heb “by a strong hand” (NAB similar); NLT “with such amazing power.”

[7:8]  ⁷ sn Redeeming you from the place of slavery. The Hebrew verb translated “redeeming” (from the root פָּדָה, padah) has the idea of redemption by the payment of a ransom. The initial symbol of this was the Passover lamb, offered by Israel to the Lord as ransom in exchange for deliverance from bondage and death (Exod 12:1-14). Later, the firstborn sons of Israel, represented by the Levites, became the ransom (Num 3:11-13). These were all types of the redemption effected by the death of Christ who described his atoning work as “a ransom for many” (Matt 20:28; cf. 1 Pet 1:18).

[7:8]  ⁸ tn Heb “hand” (so KJV, NRSV), a metaphor for power or domination.

[23:5]  ⁹ tn Heb “the Lord your God changed.” The phrase “the Lord your God” has not been included in the translation here for stylistic reasons to avoid redundancy. Moreover, use of the pronoun “he” could create confusion regarding the referent (the Lord or Balaam).

[23:5]  ¹⁰ tn The verb אָהַב (’ahav, “love”) here and commonly elsewhere in the Book of Deuteronomy speaks of God’s elective grace toward Israel. See note on the word “loved” in Deut 4:37.

[13:1]  ¹¹ tn Grk “his hour.”

[13:1]  ¹² tn Grk “that he should depart.” The ἵνα (Jina) clause in Koine Greek frequently encroached on the simple infinitive (for the sake of greater clarity).

[13:1]  ¹³ tn Or “he now loved them completely,” or “he now loved them to the uttermost” (see John 19:30). All of John 13:1 is a single sentence in Greek, although in English this would be unacceptably awkward. At the end of the verse the idiom εἰς τέλος (eis telos) was translated literally as “to the end” and the modern equivalents given in the note above, because there is an important lexical link between this passage and John 19:30, τετέλεσται (tetelestai, “It is ended”).

[13:34]  ¹⁴ tn The ἵνα (Jina) clause gives the content of the commandment. This is indicated by a dash in the translation.

[13:34]  ¹⁵ sn The idea that love is a commandment is interesting. In the OT the ten commandments have a setting in the covenant between God and Israel at Sinai; they were the stipulations that Israel had to observe if the nation were to be God’s chosen people. In speaking of love as the new commandment for those whom Jesus had chosen as his own (John 13:1, 15:16) and as a mark by which they could be distinguished from others (13:35), John shows that he is thinking of this scene in covenant terminology. But note that the disciples are to love “Just as I have loved you” (13:34). The love Jesus has for his followers cannot be duplicated by them in one sense, because it effects their salvation, since he lays down his life for them: It is an act of love that gives life to people. But in another sense, they can follow his example (recall to the end, 13:1; also 1 John 3:16, 4:16 and the interpretation of Jesus’ washing of the disciples’ feet). In this way Jesus’ disciples are to love one another: They are to follow his example of sacrificial service to one another, to death if necessary.

[15:9]  ¹⁶ tn Or “reside.”

[8:37]  ¹⁷ tn BDAG 1034 s.v. ὑπερνικάω states, “as a heightened form of νικᾶν prevail completely ὑπερνικῶμεν we are winning a most glorious victory Ro 8:37.”

[8:37]  ¹⁸ tn Here the referent could be either God or Christ, but in v. 39 it is God’s love that is mentioned.

[2:20]  ¹⁹ tn Both the NA²⁷/UBS⁴ Greek text and the NRSV place the phrase “I have been crucified with Christ” at the end of v. 19, but most English translations place these words at the beginning of v. 20.

[2:20]  ²⁰ tn Here δέ (de) has been translated as “So” to bring out the connection of the following clauses with the preceding ones. What Paul says here amounts to a result or inference drawn from his co-crucifixion with Christ and the fact that Christ now lives in him. In Greek this is a continuation of the preceding sentence, but the construction is too long and complex for contemporary English style, so a new sentence was started here in the translation.

[2:20]  ²¹ tn Grk “flesh.”

[2:20]  ²² tc A number of important witnesses (Ì⁴⁶ B D* F G) have θεοῦ καὶ Χριστοῦ (qeou kai Cristou, “of God and Christ”) instead of υἱοῦ τοῦ θεοῦ (Juiou tou qeou, “the Son of God”), found in the majority of mss, including several important ones (א A C D¹ Ψ 0278 33 1739 1881 Ï lat sy co). The construction “of God and Christ” appears to be motivated as a more explicit affirmation of the deity of Christ (following as it apparently does the Granville Sharp rule). Although Paul certainly has an elevated Christology, explicit “God-talk” with reference to Jesus does not normally appear until the later books (cf., e.g., Titus 2:13, Phil 2:10-11, and probably Rom 9:5). For different arguments but the same textual conclusions, see TCGNT 524.

[5:2]  ²³ tn Grk “walk.” The NT writers often used the verb “walk” (περιπατέω, peripatew) to refer to ethical conduct (cf. Rom 8:4; Gal 5:16; Col 4:5).

[5:2]  ²⁴ tc A number of important witnesses have ὑμᾶς (Jumas, “you”; e.g., א* A B P 0159 81 1175 al it co as well as several fathers). Other, equally important witnesses read ἡμᾶς (Jhmas, “us”; Ì⁴⁶ א² D F G Ψ 0278 33 1739 1881 al lat sy). It is possible that ἡμᾶς was accidentally introduced via homoioarcton with the previous word (ἠγάπησεν, hgaphsen). On the other hand, ὑμᾶς may have been motivated by the preceding ὑμῖν (Jumin) in 4:32 and second person verbs in 5:1, 2. Further, the flow of argument seems to require the first person pronoun. A decision is difficult to make, but the first person pronoun has a slightly greater probability of being original.

[5:2]  ²⁵ tn Grk “an offering and sacrifice to God as a smell of fragrance.” The first expression, προσφορὰν καὶ θυσίαν (prosforan kai qusian), is probably a hendiadys and has been translated such that “sacrificial” modifies “offering.” The second expression, εἰς ὀσμὴν εὐωδίας (ei" osmhn euwdia", “as a smell of fragrance”) has been translated as “a fragrant offering”; see BDAG 728-29 s.v. ὀσμή 2. Putting these two together in a clear fashion in English yields the translation: “a sacrificial and fragrant offering to God.”

[5:25]  ²⁶ tn The Greek article has been translated as a possessive pronoun (ExSyn 215).

[5:26]  ²⁷ tn The direct object “her” is implied, but not found in the Greek text. It has been supplied in the English translation to clarify the sense of the passage.

[5:27]  ²⁸ tn The use of the pronoun αὐτός (autos) is intensive and focuses attention on Christ as the one who has made the church glorious.

[5:27]  ²⁹ tn Grk “but in order that it may be holy and blameless.”

[5:1]  ³⁰ tn Or “become.”

[4:10]  ³¹ tn The Greek text lays specific emphasis on “He” through the use of the intensive pronoun, αὐτός (autos). This is reflected in the English translation through the use of “the very one.”