Deuteronomy 14:2

14:2 For you are a people holy ¹  to the Lord your God. He ²  has chosen you to be his people, prized ³  above all others on the face of the earth.

Deuteronomy 26:19

26:19 Then ⁴  he will elevate you above all the nations he has made and you will receive praise, fame, and honor. ⁵  You will ⁶  be a people holy to the Lord your God, as he has said.

Deuteronomy 28:9

28:9 The Lord will designate you as his holy people just as he promised you, if you keep his commandments ⁷  and obey him. ⁸ 

Exodus 19:5-6

19:5 And now, if you will diligently listen to me ⁹  and keep ¹⁰  my covenant, then you will be my ¹¹  special possession ¹²  out of all the nations, for all the earth is mine, 19:6 and you will be to me ¹³  a kingdom of priests ¹⁴  and a holy nation.’ ¹⁵  These are the words that you will speak to the Israelites.”

Psalms 50:5

50:5 He says: ¹⁶ 

“Assemble my covenant people before me, ¹⁷ 

those who ratified a covenant with me by sacrifice!” ¹⁸ 

Jeremiah 2:3

2:3 Israel was set apart to the Lord; they were like the first fruits of a harvest to him. ¹⁹  All who tried to devour them were punished; disaster came upon them,” says the Lord.’”

Amos 3:2

3:2 “I have chosen ²⁰  you alone from all the clans of the earth. Therefore I will punish you for all your sins.”

Amos 3:1

Every Effect has its Cause

3:1 Listen, you Israelites, to this message which the Lord is proclaiming against ²¹  you! This message is for the entire clan I brought up ²²  from the land of Egypt:

Colossians 1:19-20

1:19 For God ²³  was pleased to have all his ²⁴  fullness dwell ²⁵  in the Son ²⁶ 

1:20 and through him to reconcile all things to himself by making peace through the blood of his cross – through him, ²⁷  whether things on earth or things in heaven.

Titus 2:14

2:14 He ²⁸  gave himself for us to set us free from every kind of lawlessness and to purify for himself a people who are truly his, ²⁹  who are eager to do good. ³⁰ 

Titus 2:2

2:2 Older men are to be temperate, dignified, self-controlled, ³¹  sound in faith, in love, and in endurance. ³² 

Titus 2:5

2:5 to be self-controlled, ³³  pure, fulfilling their duties at home, ³⁴  kind, being subject to their own husbands, so that the message ³⁵  of God may not be discredited. ³⁶ 

Titus 2:9

2:9 Slaves ³⁷  are to be subject to their own masters in everything, ³⁸  to do what is wanted and not talk back,

[14:2]  ¹ tn Or “set apart.”

[14:2]  ² tn Heb “The Lord.” The pronoun has been used in the translation for stylistic reasons to avoid redundancy.

[14:2]  ³ tn Or “treasured.” The Hebrew term סְגֻלָּה (sÿgullah) describes Israel as God’s choice people, those whom he elected and who are most precious to him (cf. Exod 19:4-6; Deut 14:2; 26:18; 1 Chr 29:3; Ps 135:4; Eccl 2:8 Mal 3:17). See E. Carpenter, NIDOTTE 3:224.

[26:19]  ⁴ tn Heb “so that.” Verses 18-19 are one sentence in the Hebrew text, but the translation divides it into three sentences for stylistic reasons. The first clause in verse 19 gives a result of the preceding clause. When Israel keeps God’s law, God will bless them with fame and honor (cf. NAB “he will then raise you high in praise and renown and glory”; NLT “And if you do, he will make you greater than any other nation”).

[26:19]  ⁵ tn Heb “for praise and for a name and for glory.”

[26:19]  ⁶ tn Heb “and to be.” A new sentence was started here for stylistic reasons.

[28:9]  ⁷ tn Heb “the commandments of the Lord your God.” See note on “he” in the previous verse.

[28:9]  ⁸ tn Heb “and walk in his ways” (so NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV, NLT).

[19:5]  ⁹ tn Heb “listen to my voice.” The construction uses the imperfect tense in the conditional clause, preceded by the infinitive absolute from the same verb. The idiom “listen to the voice of” implies obedience, not just mental awareness of sound.

[19:5]  ¹⁰ tn The verb is a perfect tense with vav (ו) consecutive; it continues the idea in the protasis of the sentence: “and [if you will] keep.”

[19:5]  ¹¹ tn The lamed preposition expresses possession here: “to me” means “my.”

[19:5]  ¹² tn The noun is סְגֻלָּה (sÿgullah), which means a special possession. Israel was to be God’s special possession, but the prophets will later narrow it to the faithful remnant. All the nations belong to God, but Israel was to stand in a place of special privilege and enormous responsibility. See Deut 7:6; 14:2; 26:18; Ps 135:4; and Mal 3:17. See M. Greenburg, “Hebrew sÿgulla: Akkadian sikiltu,” JAOS 71 (1951): 172ff.

[19:6]  ¹³ tn Or “for me” (NIV, NRSV), or, if the lamed (ל) preposition has a possessive use, “my kingdom” (so NCV).

[19:6]  ¹⁴ tn The construction “a kingdom of priests” means that the kingdom is made up of priests. W. C. Kaiser (“Exodus,” EBC 2:417) offers four possible renderings of the expression: 1) apposition, viz., “kings, that is, priests; 2) as a construct with a genitive of specification, “royal priesthood”; 3) as a construct with the genitive being the attribute, “priestly kingdom”; and 4) reading with an unexpressed “and” – “kings and priests.” He takes the latter view that they were to be kings and priests. (Other references are R. B. Y. Scott, “A Kingdom of Priests (Exodus xix. 6),” OTS 8 [1950]: 213-19; William L. Moran, “A Kingdom of Priests,” The Bible in Current Catholic Thought, 7-20). However, due to the parallelism of the next description which uses an adjective, this is probably a construct relationship. This kingdom of God will be composed of a priestly people. All the Israelites would be living wholly in God’s service and enjoying the right of access to him. And, as priests, they would have the duty of representing God to the nations, following what they perceived to be the duties of priests – proclaiming God’s word, interceding for people, and making provision for people to find God through atonement (see Deut 33:9,10).

[19:6]  ¹⁵ tn They are also to be “a holy nation.” They are to be a nation separate and distinct from the rest of the nations. Here is another aspect of their duty. It was one thing to be God’s special possession, but to be that they had to be priestly and holy. The duties of the covenant will specify what it would mean to be a holy nation. In short, they had to keep themselves free from everything that characterized pagan people (S. R. Driver, Exodus, 171). So it is a bilateral covenant: they received special privileges but they must provide special services by the special discipline. See also H. Kruse, “Exodus 19:5 and the Mission of Israel,” North East Asian Journal of Theology 24/25 (1980): 239-42.

[50:5]  ¹⁶ tn The words “he says” are supplied in the translation for clarification. God’s summons to the defendant follows.

[50:5]  ¹⁷ tn Or “Gather to me my covenant people.” The Hebrew term חָסִיד (khasid, “covenant people”) elsewhere in the psalms is used in a positive sense of God’s loyal followers (see the note at Ps 4:3), but here, as the following line makes clear, the term has a neutral sense and simply refers to those who have outwardly sworn allegiance to God, not necessarily to those whose loyalty is genuine.

[50:5]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “the cutters of my covenant according to sacrifice.” A sacrifice accompanied the covenant-making ceremony and formally ratified the agreement (see Exod 24:3-8).

[2:3]  ¹⁹ sn Heb “the first fruits of his harvest.” Many commentators see the figure here as having theological significance for the calling of the Gentiles. It is likely, however, that in this context the metaphor – here rendered as a simile – is intended to bring out the special relationship and inviolability that Israel had with God. As the first fruits were the special possession of the Lord, to be eaten only by the priests and off limits to the common people, so Israel was God’s special possession and was not to be “eaten” by the nations.

[3:2]  ²⁰ tn Heb “You only have I known.” The Hebrew verb יָדַע (yada’) is used here in its covenantal sense of “recognize in a special way.”

[3:1]  ²¹ tn Or “about.”

[3:1]  ²² tn One might expect a third person verb form (“he brought up”), since the Lord apparently refers to himself in the third person in the preceding sentence. This first person form, however, serves to connect this message to the earlier indictment (2:10) and anticipates the words of the following verse.

[1:19]  ²³ tn The noun “God” does not appear in the Greek text, but since God is the one who reconciles the world to himself (cf. 2 Cor 5:19), he is clearly the subject of εὐδόκησεν (eudokhsen).

[1:19]  ²⁴ tn The Greek article τό (to), insofar as it relates to God, may be translated as a possessive pronoun, i.e., “his.” BDAG 404 s.v. εὐδοκέω 1 translates the phrase as “all the fullness willed to dwell in him” thus leaving the referent as impersonal. Insofar as Paul is alluding to the so-called emanations from God this is acceptable. But the fact that “the fullness” dwells in a person (i.e., “in him”) seems to argue for the translation “his fullness” where “his” refers to God.

[1:19]  ²⁵ tn The aorist verb κατοικῆσαι (katoikhsai) could be taken as an ingressive, in which case it refers to the incarnation and may be translated as “begin to dwell, to take up residence.” It is perhaps better, though, to take it as a constative aorist and simply a reference to the fact that the fullness of God dwells in Jesus Christ. This is a permanent dwelling, though, not a temporary one, as the present tense in 2:9 makes clear.

[1:19]  ²⁶ tn Grk “him”; the referent (the Son; see v. 13) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[1:20]  ²⁷ tc The presence or absence of the second occurrence of the phrase δι᾿ αὐτοῦ (di’ autou, “through him”) is a difficult textual problem to solve. External evidence is fairly evenly divided. Many ancient and excellent witnesses lack the phrase (B D* F G I 0278 81 1175 1739 1881 2464 al latt sa), but equally important witnesses have it (Ì⁴⁶ א A C D¹ Ψ 048^vid 33 Ï). Both readings have strong Alexandrian support, which makes the problem difficult to decide on external evidence alone. Internal evidence points to the inclusion of the phrase as original. The word immediately preceding the phrase is the masculine pronoun αὐτοῦ (autou); thus the possibility of omission through homoioteleuton in various witnesses is likely. Scribes might have deleted the phrase because of perceived redundancy or awkwardness in the sense: The shorter reading is smoother and more elegant, so scribes would be prone to correct the text in that direction. As far as style is concerned, repetition of key words and phrases for emphasis is not foreign to the corpus Paulinum (see, e.g., Rom 8:23, Eph 1:13, 2 Cor 12:7). In short, it is easier to account for the shorter reading arising from the longer reading than vice versa, so the longer reading is more likely original.

[2:14]  ²⁸ tn Grk “who” (as a continuation of the previous clause).

[2:14]  ²⁹ tn Or “a people who are his very own.”

[2:14]  ³⁰ tn Grk “for good works.”

[2:2]  ³¹ tn Or “sensible.”

[2:2]  ³² sn Temperate…in endurance. See the same cluster of virtues in 1 Thess 1:3 and 1 Cor 13:13.

[2:5]  ³³ tn Or “sensible.”

[2:5]  ³⁴ tn Grk “domestic,” “keeping house.”

[2:5]  ³⁵ tn Or “word.”

[2:5]  ³⁶ tn Or “slandered.”

[2:9]  ³⁷ tn See the note on the word “slave” in 1:1.

[2:9]  ³⁸ tn Or “to be subject to their own masters, to do what is wanted in everything.”