Deuteronomy 4:35-36

4:35 You have been taught that the Lord alone is God – there is no other besides him. 4:36 From heaven he spoke to you in order to teach you, and on earth he showed you his great fire from which you also heard his words. ¹ 

Deuteronomy 5:6

The Ten Commandments

5:6 “I am the Lord your God, he who brought you from the land of Egypt, from the place of slavery.

Deuteronomy 5:1

The Opening Exhortation

5:1 Then Moses called all the people of Israel together and said to them: ²  “Listen, Israel, to the statutes and ordinances that I am about to deliver to you today; learn them and be careful to keep them!

Deuteronomy 18:21

18:21 Now if you say to yourselves, ³  ‘How can we tell that a message is not from the Lord?’ ⁴  –

Deuteronomy 18:2

18:2 They ⁵  will have no inheritance in the midst of their fellow Israelites; ⁶  the Lord alone is their inheritance, just as he had told them.

Deuteronomy 19:5

19:5 Suppose he goes with someone else ⁷  to the forest to cut wood and when he raises the ax ⁸  to cut the tree, the ax head flies loose ⁹  from the handle and strikes ¹⁰  his fellow worker ¹¹  so hard that he dies. The person responsible ¹²  may then flee to one of these cities to save himself. ¹³ 

Deuteronomy 19:1

Laws Concerning Manslaughter

19:1 When the Lord your God destroys the nations whose land he ¹⁴  is about to give you and you dispossess them and settle in their cities and houses,

Deuteronomy 29:10

29:10 You are standing today, all of you, before the Lord your God – the heads of your tribes, ¹⁵  your elders, your officials, every Israelite man,

Isaiah 42:8

The Lord Intervenes

42:8 I am the Lord! That is my name!

I will not share my glory with anyone else,

or the praise due me with idols.

Isaiah 44:6

The Absurdity of Idolatry

44:6 This is what the Lord, Israel’s king, says,

their protector, ¹⁶  the Lord who commands armies:

“I am the first and I am the last,

there is no God but me.

Isaiah 44:8

44:8 Don’t panic! Don’t be afraid! ¹⁷ 

Did I not tell you beforehand and decree it?

You are my witnesses! Is there any God but me?

There is no other sheltering rock; ¹⁸  I know of none.

Isaiah 45:5-6

45:5 I am the Lord, I have no peer, ¹⁹ 

there is no God but me.

I arm you for battle, ²⁰  even though you do not recognize ²¹  me.

45:6 I do this ²²  so people ²³  will recognize from east to west

that there is no God but me;

I am the Lord, I have no peer.

Jeremiah 10:10-11

10:10 The Lord is the only true God.

He is the living God and the everlasting King.

When he shows his anger the earth shakes.

None of the nations can stand up to his fury.

10:11 You people of Israel should tell those nations this:

‘These gods did not make heaven and earth.

They will disappear ²⁴  from the earth and from under the heavens.’ ²⁵ 

Mark 12:29-32

12:29 Jesus answered, “The most important is: ‘Listen, Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. 12:30 Love ²⁶  the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ ²⁷  12:31 The second is: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ ²⁸  There is no other commandment greater than these.” 12:32 The expert in the law said to him, “That is true, Teacher; you are right to say that he is one, and there is no one else besides him. ²⁹ 

John 17:3

17:3 Now this ³⁰  is eternal life ³¹  – that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, ³²  whom you sent.

John 17:1

Jesus Prays for the Father to Glorify Him

17:1 When Jesus had finished saying these things, he looked upward ³³  to heaven ³⁴  and said, “Father, the time ³⁵  has come. Glorify your Son, so that your ³⁶  Son may glorify you –

Colossians 1:4-6

1:4 since ³⁷  we heard about your faith in Christ Jesus and the love that you have for all the saints. 1:5 Your faith and love have arisen ³⁸  from the hope laid up ³⁹  for you in heaven, which you have heard about in the message of truth, the gospel ⁴⁰  1:6 that has come to you. Just as in the entire world this gospel ⁴¹  is bearing fruit and growing, so it has also been bearing fruit and growing ⁴²  among you from the first day you heard it and understood the grace of God in truth.

Colossians 1:1

Salutation

1:1 From Paul, ⁴³  an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother,

Colossians 2:5

2:5 For though ⁴⁴  I am absent from you in body, I am present with you in spirit, rejoicing to see ⁴⁵  your morale ⁴⁶  and the firmness of your faith in Christ.

[4:36]  ¹ tn Heb “and his words you heard from the midst of the fire.”

[5:1]  ² tn Heb “and Moses called to all Israel and he said to them”; NAB, NASB, NIV “Moses summoned (convened NRSV) all Israel.”

[18:21]  ³ tn Heb “in your heart.”

[18:21]  ⁴ tn Heb “know the word which the Lord has not spoken.” The issue here is not understanding the meaning of the message, but distinguishing a genuine prophetic word from a false one.

[18:2]  ⁵ tn Heb “he” (and throughout the verse).

[18:2]  ⁶ tn Heb “brothers,” but not referring to actual siblings. Cf. NASB “their countrymen”; NRSV “the other members of the community.”

[19:5]  ⁷ tn Heb “his neighbor” (so NAB, NIV); NASB “his friend.”

[19:5]  ⁸ tn Heb “and he raises his hand with the iron.”

[19:5]  ⁹ tn Heb “the iron slips off.”

[19:5]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “finds.”

[19:5]  ¹¹ tn Heb “his neighbor.”

[19:5]  ¹² tn Heb “he”; the referent (the person responsible for his friend’s death) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[19:5]  ¹³ tn Heb “and live.”

[19:1]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “the Lord your God.” The pronoun has been used in the translation for stylistic reasons to avoid redundancy.

[29:10]  ¹⁵ tc Heb “your heads, your tribes.” The Syriac presupposes either “heads of your tribes” or “your heads, your judges,” etc. (reading שֹׁפְטֵכֶם [shofÿtekhem] for שִׁבְטֵיכֶם [shivtekhem]). Its comparative difficulty favors the originality of the MT reading. Cf. KJV “your captains of your tribes”; NRSV “the leaders of your tribes”; NLT “your tribal leaders.”

[44:6]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “his kinsman redeemer.” See the note at 41:14.

[44:8]  ¹⁷ tn BDB 923 s.v. רָהָה derives this verb from an otherwise unattested root, while HALOT 403 s.v. יָרָה defines it as “be stupefied” on the basis of an Arabic cognate. The form is likely a corruption of תיראו, the reading attested in the Qumran scroll 1QIsa^a.

[44:8]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “rock” or “rocky cliff,” a title that depicts God as a protective refuge in his role as sovereign king; thus the translation “sheltering rock.”

[45:5]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “and there is none besides.” On the use of עוֹד (’od) here, see BDB 729 s.v. 1.c.

[45:5]  ²⁰ tn Heb “gird you” (so NASB) or “strengthen you” (so NIV).

[45:5]  ²¹ tn Or “know” (NAB, NCV, NRSV, TEV, CEV, NLT); NIV “have not acknowledged.”

[45:6]  ²² tn The words “I do this” are supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[45:6]  ²³ tn Heb “they” (so KJV, ASV); TEV, CEV “everyone”; NLT “all the world.”

[10:11]  ²⁴ tn Aram “The gods who did not make…earth will disappear…” The sentence is broken up in the translation to avoid a long, complex English sentence in conformity with contemporary English style.

[10:11]  ²⁵ tn This verse is in Aramaic. It is the only Aramaic sentence in Jeremiah. Scholars debate the appropriateness of this verse to this context. Many see it as a gloss added by a postexilic scribe which was later incorporated into the text. Both R. E. Clendenen (“Discourse Strategies in Jeremiah 10,” JBL 106 [1987]: 401-8) and W. L. Holladay (Jeremiah [Hermeneia], 1:324-25, 334-35) have given detailed arguments that the passage is not only original but the climax and center of the contrast between the Lord and idols in vv. 2-16. Holladay shows that the passage is a very carefully constructed chiasm (see accompanying study note) which argues that “these” at the end is the subject of the verb “will disappear” not the attributive adjective modifying heaven. He also makes a very good case that the verse is poetry and not prose as it is rendered in the majority of modern English versions.

[12:30]  ²⁶ tn Grk “You will love.” The future indicative is used here with imperatival force (see ExSyn 452 and 569).

[12:30]  ²⁷ sn A quotation from Deut 6:4-5 and Josh 22:5 (LXX). The fourfold reference to different parts of the person says, in effect, that one should love God with all one’s being.

[12:31]  ²⁸ sn A quotation from Lev 19:18.

[12:32]  ²⁹ sn A quotation from Deut 4:35.

[17:3]  ³⁰ 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]  ³¹ 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]  ³² tn Or “and Jesus the Messiah” (Both Greek “Christ” and Hebrew and Aramaic “Messiah” mean “one who has been anointed”).

[17:1]  ³³ tn Grk “he raised his eyes” (an idiom).

[17:1]  ³⁴ tn Or “to the sky.” The Greek word οὐρανός (ouranos) may be translated “sky” or “heaven” depending on the context.

[17:1]  ³⁵ tn Grk “the hour.”

[17:1]  ³⁶ tc The better witnesses (א B C* W 0109 0301) have “the Son” (ὁ υἱός, Jo Juios) here, while the majority (C³ L Ψ Ë¹³ 33 Ï) read “your Son also” (καὶ ὁ υἱὸς σου, kai Jo Juio" sou), or “your Son” (ὁ υἱὸς σου; A D Θ 0250 1 579 pc lat sy); the second corrector of C has καὶ ὁ υἱός (“the Son also”). The longer readings appear to be predictable scribal expansions and as such should be considered secondary.

[1:4]  ³⁷ tn The adverbial participle ἀκούσαντες (akousante") is understood to be temporal and translated with “since.” A causal idea may also be in the apostle’s mind, but the context emphasizes temporal ideas, e.g., “from the day” (v. 6).

[1:5]  ³⁸ 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]  ³⁹ tn BDAG 113 s.v. ἀπόκειμαι 2 renders ἀποκειμένην (apokeimenhn) with the expression “reserved” in this verse.

[1:5]  ⁴⁰ 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.

[1:6]  ⁴¹ 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]  ⁴² 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.

[1:1]  ⁴³ tn Grk “Paul.” The word “from” is not in the Greek text, but has been supplied to indicate the sender of the letter.

[2:5]  ⁴⁴ 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]  ⁴⁵ tn Grk “rejoicing and seeing.”

[2:5]  ⁴⁶ tn The Greek word τάξις can mean “order,” “discipline,” or even “unbroken ranks” (REB).