Ezekiel 18:5

18:5 “Suppose a man is righteous. He practices what is just and right,

Ezekiel 18:19

18:19 “Yet you say, ‘Why should the son not suffer ¹  for his father’s iniquity?’ When the son does what is just and right, and observes all my statutes and carries them out, he will surely live.

Ezekiel 18:27

18:27 When a wicked person turns from the wickedness he has committed and does what is just and right, he will preserve his life.

Psalms 119:1

Psalm 119 ² 

א (Alef)

119:1 How blessed are those whose actions are blameless, ³ 

who obey ⁴  the law of the Lord.

Galatians 5:22-24

5:22 But the fruit of the Spirit ⁵  is love, ⁶  joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, ⁷  5:23 gentleness, and ⁸  self-control. Against such things there is no law. 5:24 Now those who belong to Christ ⁹  have crucified the flesh ¹⁰  with its passions ¹¹  and desires.

Titus 2:11-14

2:11 For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all people. ¹²  2:12 It trains us ¹³  to reject godless ways ¹⁴  and worldly desires and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, 2:13 as we wait for the happy fulfillment of our hope in the glorious appearing ¹⁵  of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. ¹⁶  2:14 He ¹⁷  gave himself for us to set us free from every kind of lawlessness and to purify for himself a people who are truly his, ¹⁸  who are eager to do good. ¹⁹ 

[18:19]  ¹ tn Heb “lift up, bear.”

[119:1]  ² sn Psalm 119. The psalmist celebrates God’s law and the guidance it provides his people. He expresses his desire to know God’s law thoroughly so that he might experience the blessings that come to those who obey it. This lengthy psalm exhibits an elaborate acrostic pattern. The psalm is divided into twenty-two sections (corresponding to the letters of the Hebrew alphabet), each of which is comprised of eight verses. Each of the verses in the first section (vv. 1-8) begins with the letter alef (א), the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet. This pattern continues throughout the psalm as each new section highlights a successive letter of the alphabet. Each verse in section two (vv. 9-16) begins with the second letter of the alphabet, each verse in section three (vv. 17-24) with the third letter, etc. This rigid pattern creates a sense of order and completeness and may have facilitated memorization.

[119:1]  ³ tn Heb “[Oh] the happiness of those who are blameless of way.”

[119:1]  ⁴ tn Heb “walk in.”

[5:22]  ⁵ tn That is, the fruit the Spirit produces.

[5:22]  ⁶ sn Another way to punctuate this is “love” followed by a colon (love: joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control). It is thus possible to read the eight characteristics following “love” as defining love.

[5:22]  ⁷ tn Or “reliability”; see BDAG 818 s.v. πίστις 1.a.

[5:23]  ⁸ tn “And” is supplied here as a matter of English style, which normally inserts “and” between the last two elements of a list or series.

[5:24]  ⁹ tc ‡ Some mss (א A B C P Ψ 0122¹ 0278 33 1175 1739 pc co) read “Christ Jesus” here, while many significant ones (Ì⁴⁶ D F G 0122*^,2 latt sy), as well as the Byzantine text, lack “Jesus.” The Byzantine text is especially not prone to omit the name “Jesus”; that it does so here argues for the authenticity of the shorter reading (for similar instances of probably authentic Byzantine shorter readings, see Matt 24:36 and Phil 1:14; cf. also W.-H. J. Wu, “A Systematic Analysis of the Shorter Readings in the Byzantine Text of the Synoptic Gospels” [Ph.D. diss., Dallas Theological Seminary, 2002]). On the strength of the alignment of Ì⁴⁶ with the Western and Byzantine texttypes, the shorter reading is preferred. NA²⁷ includes the word in brackets, indicating doubts as to its authenticity.

[5:24]  ¹⁰ tn See the note on the word “flesh” in Gal 5:13.

[5:24]  ¹¹ tn The Greek term παθήμασιν (paqhmasin, translated “passions”) refers to strong physical desires, especially of a sexual nature (L&N 25.30).

[2:11]  ¹² tn Grk “all men”; but ἀνθρώποις (anqrwpois) is generic here, referring to both men and women.

[2:12]  ¹³ tn Grk “training us” (as a continuation of the previous clause). Because of the length and complexity of the Greek sentence, a new sentence was started at the beginning of v. 12 by translating the participle παιδεύουσα (paideuousa) as a finite verb and supplying the pronoun “it” as subject.

[2:12]  ¹⁴ tn Grk “ungodliness.”

[2:13]  ¹⁵ tn Grk “the blessed hope and glorious appearing.”

[2:13]  ¹⁶ tn The terms “God and Savior” both refer to the same person, Jesus Christ. This is one of the clearest statements in the NT concerning the deity of Christ. The construction in Greek is known as the Granville Sharp rule, named after the English philanthropist-linguist who first clearly articulated the rule in 1798. Sharp pointed out that in the construction article-noun-καί-noun (where καί [kai] = “and”), when two nouns are singular, personal, and common (i.e., not proper names), they always had the same referent. Illustrations such as “the friend and brother,” “the God and Father,” etc. abound in the NT to prove Sharp’s point. The only issue is whether terms such as “God” and “Savior” could be considered common nouns as opposed to proper names. Sharp and others who followed (such as T. F. Middleton in his masterful The Doctrine of the Greek Article) demonstrated that a proper name in Greek was one that could not be pluralized. Since both “God” (θεός, qeos) and “savior” (σωτήρ, swthr) were occasionally found in the plural, they did not constitute proper names, and hence, do fit Sharp’s rule. Although there have been 200 years of attempts to dislodge Sharp’s rule, all attempts have been futile. Sharp’s rule stands vindicated after all the dust has settled. For more information on Sharp’s rule see ExSyn 270-78, esp. 276. See also 2 Pet 1:1 and Jude 4.

[2:14]  ¹⁷ tn Grk “who” (as a continuation of the previous clause).

[2:14]  ¹⁸ tn Or “a people who are his very own.”

[2:14]  ¹⁹ tn Grk “for good works.”