Exodus 19:5

19:5 And now, if you will diligently listen to me ¹  and keep ²  my covenant, then you will be my ³  special possession ⁴  out of all the nations, for all the earth is mine,

Deuteronomy 10:14

10:14 The heavens – indeed the highest heavens – belong to the Lord your God, as does the earth and everything in it.

Deuteronomy 10:1

The Opportunity to Begin Again

10:1 At that same time the Lord said to me, “Carve out for yourself two stone tablets like the first ones and come up the mountain to me; also make for yourself a wooden ark. ⁵ 

Deuteronomy 29:11-14

29:11 your infants, your wives, and the ⁶  foreigners living in your encampment, those who chop wood and those who carry water – 29:12 so that you may enter by oath into the covenant the Lord your God is making with you today. ⁷  29:13 Today he will affirm that you are his people and that he is your God, ⁸  just as he promised you and as he swore by oath to your ancestors ⁹  Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. 29:14 It is not with you alone that I am making this covenant by oath,

Psalms 24:1

Psalm 24 ¹⁰ 

A psalm of David.

24:1 The Lord owns the earth and all it contains,

the world and all who live in it.

Psalms 50:12

50:12 Even if I were hungry, I would not tell you,

for the world and all it contains belong to me.

Psalms 115:16

115:16 The heavens belong to the Lord, ¹¹ 

but the earth he has given to mankind. ¹² 

Psalms 115:1

Psalm 115 ¹³ 

115:1 Not to us, O Lord, not to us!

But to your name bring honor, ¹⁴ 

for the sake of your loyal love and faithfulness. ¹⁵ 

Colossians 1:26

1:26 that is, the mystery that has been kept hidden from ages and generations, but has now been revealed to his saints.

Colossians 1:28

1:28 We proclaim him by instructing ¹⁶  and teaching ¹⁷  all people ¹⁸  with all wisdom so that we may present every person mature ¹⁹  in Christ.

[19:5]  ¹ 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]  ² 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]  ³ tn The lamed preposition expresses possession here: “to me” means “my.”

[19:5]  ⁴ 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.

[10:1]  ⁵ tn Or “chest” (so NIV, CEV); NLT “sacred chest”; TEV “wooden box.” This chest was made of acacia wood; it is later known as the ark of the covenant.

[29:11]  ⁶ tn Heb “your.”

[29:12]  ⁷ tn Heb “for you to pass on into the covenant of the Lord your God and into his oath, which the Lord your God is cutting with you today.”

[29:13]  ⁸ tn Heb “in order to establish you today to him for a people and he will be to you for God.” Verses 10-13 are one long sentence in Hebrew. The translation divides this into two sentences for stylistic reasons.

[29:13]  ⁹ tn Heb “fathers” (also in v. 25).

[24:1]  ¹⁰ sn Psalm 24. The psalmist affirms the universal kingship of the sovereign creator, reminds his people that only the morally pure are qualified to worship him, and celebrates his splendor as a mighty warrior king.

[115:16]  ¹¹ tn Heb “the heavens [are] heavens to the Lord.”

[115:16]  ¹² tn Heb “to the sons of man.”

[115:1]  ¹³ sn Psalm 115. The psalmist affirms that Israel’s God is superior to pagan idols and urges Israel to place their confidence in him.

[115:1]  ¹⁴ tn Or “give glory.”

[115:1]  ¹⁵ sn The psalmist asks the Lord to demonstrate his loyal love and faithfulness, not simply so Israel may benefit, but primarily so that the Lord will receive honor among the nations, who will recognize, contrary to their present view (see v. 2), that Israel’s God is committed to his people.

[1:28]  ¹⁶ tn Or “admonishing,” or “warning.” BDAG 679 s.v. νουθετέω states, “to counsel about avoidance or cessation of an improper course of conduct,, admonish, warn, instruct.” After the participle νουθετοῦντες (nouqetounte", “instructing”) the words πάντα ἄνθρωπον (panta anqrwpon, “all men”) occur in the Greek text, but since the same phrase appears again after διδάσκοντες (didaskontes) it was omitted in translation to avoid redundancy in English.

[1:28]  ¹⁷ tn The two participles “instructing” (νουθετοῦντες, nouqetounte") and “teaching” (διδάσκοντες, didaskonte") are translated as participles of means (“by”) related to the finite verb “we proclaim” (καταγγέλλομεν, katangellomen).

[1:28]  ¹⁸ tn Here ἄνθρωπον (anqrwpon) is twice translated as a generic (“people” and “person”) since both men and women are clearly intended in this context.

[1:28]  ¹⁹ tn Since Paul’s focus is on the present experience of the Colossians, “mature” is a better translation of τέλειον (teleion) than “perfect,” since the latter implies a future, eschatological focus.