Galatians 2:6

2:6 But from those who were influential ¹  (whatever they were makes no difference to me; God shows no favoritism between people ² ) – those influential leaders ³  added ⁴  nothing to my message. ⁵ 

Proverbs 25:14

25:14 Like cloudy skies and wind that produce no rain, ⁶ 

so is the one who boasts ⁷  of a gift not given. ⁸ 

Proverbs 26:12

26:12 Do you see ⁹  a man wise in his own eyes? ¹⁰ 

There is more hope for a fool ¹¹  than for him.

Luke 18:11

18:11 The Pharisee stood and prayed about himself like this: ¹²  ‘God, I thank ¹³  you that I am not like other people: ¹⁴  extortionists, ¹⁵  unrighteous people, ¹⁶  adulterers – or even like this tax collector. ¹⁷ 

Romans 12:3

Conduct in Humility

12:3 For by the grace given to me I say to every one of you not to think more highly of yourself than you ought to think, but to think with sober discernment, as God has distributed to each of you ¹⁸  a measure of faith. ¹⁹ 

Romans 12:16

12:16 Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty but associate with the lowly. ²⁰  Do not be conceited. ²¹ 

Romans 12:1

Consecration of the Believer’s Life

12:1 Therefore I exhort you, brothers and sisters, ²²  by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a sacrifice – alive, holy, and pleasing to God ²³  – which is your reasonable service.

Colossians 3:18

Exhortation to Households

3:18 Wives, submit to your ²⁴  husbands, as is fitting in the Lord.

Colossians 1:2

1:2 to the saints, the faithful ²⁵  brothers and sisters ²⁶  in Christ, at Colossae. Grace and peace to you ²⁷  from God our Father! ²⁸ 

[2:6]  ¹ tn Or “influential leaders.” BDAG 255 s.v. δοκέω 2.a.β has “the influential men Gal 2:2, 6b. A fuller expr. w. the same mng., w. inf. added…vss. 6a, 9.” This refers to the leadership of the Jerusalem church.

[2:6]  ² tn Grk “God does not receive the face of man,” an idiom for showing favoritism or partiality (BDAG 887-88 s.v. πρόσωπον 1.b.α; L&N 88.238).

[2:6]  ³ tn Or “influential people”; here “leaders” was used rather than “people” for stylistic reasons, to avoid redundancy with the word “people” in the previous parenthetical remark. See also the note on the word “influential” at the beginning of this verse.

[2:6]  ⁴ tn Or “contributed.” This is the same word translated “go to ask advice from” in 1:16, but it has a different meaning here; see L&N 59.72.

[2:6]  ⁵ tn Or “added nothing to my authority.” Grk “added nothing to me,” with what was added (“message,” etc.) implied.

[25:14]  ⁶ sn The emblem now is one of clouds and winds that would be expected to produce rain; they gain attention and raise people’s expectations but prove to be disappointing when no rain is forthcoming, and hence could be thought of as deceitful.

[25:14]  ⁷ tn The form מִתְהַלֵּל (mithallel) is the Hitpael participle of the well-known word for “praise”; but in this stem it means “to praise oneself” or “to boast.” The description of “windbag” seems appropriate in this context.

[25:14]  ⁸ tn Heb “a gift of falsehood.” This would mean that the individual brags about giving a gift, when there is no gift.

[26:12]  ⁹ tn The verse simply uses a perfect tense. The meaning of the verse would be the same if this were interpreted as an affirmation rather than as an interrogative. The first line calls such a person to one’s attention.

[26:12]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “in his own eyes” (so NAB, NASB, NIV).

[26:12]  ¹¹ sn Previous passages in the book of Proverbs all but deny the possibility of hope for the fool. So this proverb is saying there is absolutely no hope for the self-conceited person, and there might be a slight hope for the fool – he may yet figure out that he really is a fool.

[18:11]  ¹² tn Or “stood by himself and prayed like this.” The prepositional phrase πρὸς ἑαυτόν (pros eauton, “to/about himself”) could go with either the aorist participle σταθείς (staqeis, “stood”) or with the imperfect verb προσηύχετο (proshuceto, “he prayed”). If taken with the participle, then the meaning would seem at first glance to be: “stood ‘by himself’,” or “stood ‘alone’.” Now it is true that πρός can mean “by” or “with” when used with intransitive verbs such as ἵστημι ({isthmi, “I stand”; cf. BDAG 874 s.v. πρός 2.a), but πρὸς ἑαυτόν together never means “by himself” or “alone” in biblical Greek. On the other hand, if πρὸς ἑαυτόν is taken with the verb, then two different nuances emerge, both of which highlight in different ways the principal point Jesus seems to be making about the arrogance of this religious leader: (1) “prayed to himself,” but not necessarily silently, or (2) “prayed about himself,” with the connotation that he prayed out loud, for all to hear. Since his prayer is really a review of his moral résumé, directed both at advertising his own righteousness and exposing the perversion of the tax collector, whom he actually mentions in his prayer, the latter option seems preferable. If this is the case, then the Pharisee’s mention of God is really nothing more than a formality.

[18:11]  ¹³ sn The Pharisee’s prayer started out as a thanksgiving psalm to God, but the praise ended up not being about God.

[18:11]  ¹⁴ tn Here the plural Greek term ἀνθρώπων (anqrwpwn) is used as a generic and can refer to both men and women (NASB, NRSV, “people”; NLT, “everyone else”; NAB, “the rest of humanity”).

[18:11]  ¹⁵ tn Or “swindlers” (BDAG 134 s.v. ἅρπαξ 2); see also Isa 10:2; Josephus, J. W. 6.3.4 [6.203].

[18:11]  ¹⁶ sn A general category for “sinners” (1 Cor 6:9; Lev 19:3).

[18:11]  ¹⁷ sn Note what the Pharisee assumes about the righteousness of this tax collector by grouping him with extortionists, unrighteous people, and adulterers.

[12:3]  ¹⁸ tn The words “of you” have been supplied for clarity.

[12:3]  ¹⁹ tn Or “to each as God has distributed a measure of faith.”

[12:16]  ²⁰ tn Or “but give yourselves to menial tasks.” The translation depends on whether one takes the adjective “lowly” as masculine or neuter.

[12:16]  ²¹ tn Grk “Do not be wise in your thinking.”

[12:1]  ²² tn Grk “brothers.” See note on the phrase “brothers and sisters” in 1:13.

[12:1]  ²³ tn The participle and two adjectives “alive, holy, and pleasing to God” are taken as predicates in relation to “sacrifice,” making the exhortation more emphatic. See ExSyn 618-19.

[3:18]  ²⁴ tn The article τοῖς (tois) with ἀνδράσιν (andrasin, “husbands”) has been translated as a possessive pronoun (“your”); see ExSyn 215.

[1:2]  ²⁵ tn Grk “and faithful.” The construction in Greek (as well as Paul’s style) suggests that the saints are identical to the faithful; hence, the καί (kai) is best left untranslated (cf. Eph 1:1). See ExSyn 281-82.

[1:2]  ²⁶ tn Grk “brothers,” but the Greek word may be used for “brothers and sisters” or “fellow Christians” as here (cf. BDAG 18 s.v. ἀδελφός 1, where considerable nonbiblical evidence for the plural ἀδελφοί [adelfoi] meaning “brothers and sisters” is cited).

[1:2]  ²⁷ tn Or “Grace to you and peace.”

[1:2]  ²⁸ tc Most witnesses, including some important ones (א A C F G I [P] 075 Ï it bo), read “and the Lord Jesus Christ” at the end of this verse, no doubt to conform the wording to the typical Pauline salutation. However, excellent and early witnesses (B D K L Ψ 33 81 1175 1505 1739 1881 al sa) lack this phrase. Since the omission is inexplicable as arising from the longer reading (otherwise, these mss would surely have deleted the phrase in the rest of the corpus Paulinum), it is surely authentic.