Galatians 4:9

4:9 But now that you have come to know God (or rather to be known by God), how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless ¹  basic forces? ²  Do you want to be enslaved to them all over again? ³ 

Galatians 4:25

4:25 Now Hagar represents Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children.

Galatians 4:31

4:31 Therefore, brothers and sisters, ⁴  we are not children of the slave woman but of the free woman.

Galatians 2:4

2:4 Now this matter arose ⁵  because of the false brothers with false pretenses ⁶  who slipped in unnoticed to spy on ⁷  our freedom that we have in Christ Jesus, to make us slaves. ⁸ 

Galatians 3:23

Sons of God Are Heirs of Promise

3:23 Now before faith ⁹  came we were held in custody under the law, being kept as prisoners ¹⁰  until the coming faith would be revealed.

Galatians 5:1

Freedom of the Believer

5:1 For freedom ¹¹  Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not be subject again to the yoke ¹²  of slavery.

Matthew 11:28

11:28 Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.

John 8:31

Abraham’s Children and the Devil’s Children

8:31 Then Jesus said to those Judeans ¹³  who had believed him, “If you continue to follow my teaching, ¹⁴  you are really ¹⁵  my disciples

Acts 15:10

15:10 So now why are you putting God to the test ¹⁶  by placing on the neck of the disciples a yoke ¹⁷  that neither our ancestors ¹⁸  nor we have been able to bear?

Romans 8:15

8:15 For you did not receive the spirit of slavery leading again to fear, ¹⁹  but you received the Spirit of adoption, ²⁰  by whom ²¹  we cry, “Abba, Father.”

[4:9]  ¹ tn Or “useless.” See L&N 65.16.

[4:9]  ² tn See the note on the phrase “basic forces” in 4:3.

[4:9]  ³ tn Grk “basic forces, to which you want to be enslaved…” Verse 9 is a single sentence in the Greek text, but has been divided into two in the translation because of the length and complexity of the Greek sentence.

[4:31]  ⁴ tn Grk “brothers.” See note on the phrase “brothers and sisters” in 1:11.

[2:4]  ⁵ tn No subject and verb are expressed in vv. 4-5, but the phrase “Now this matter arose,” implied from v. 3, was supplied to make a complete English sentence.

[2:4]  ⁶ tn The adjective παρεισάκτους (pareisaktou"), which relates to someone joining a group with false motives or false pretenses, applies to the “false brothers.” Although the expression “false brothers with false pretenses” is somewhat redundant, it captures the emphatic force of Paul’s expression, which labels both these “brothers” as false (ψευδαδέλφους, yeudadelfou") as well as their motives. See L&N 34.29 for more information.

[2:4]  ⁷ tn The verb translated here as “spy on” (κατασκοπέω, kataskopew) can have a neutral nuance, but here the connotation is certainly negative (so F. F. Bruce, Galatians [NIGTC], 112-13, and E. Burton, Galatians [ICC], 83).

[2:4]  ⁸ tn Grk “in order that they might enslave us.” The ἵνα (Jina) clause with the subjunctive verb καταδουλώσουσιν (katadoulwsousin) has been translated as an English infinitival clause.

[3:23]  ⁹ tn Or “the faithfulness [of Christ] came.”

[3:23]  ¹⁰ tc Instead of the present participle συγκλειόμενοι (sunkleiomenoi; found in Ì⁴⁶ א A B D* F G P Ψ 33 1739 al), C D¹ 0176 0278 Ï have the perfect συγκεκλεισμένοι (sunkekleismenoi). The syntactical implication of the perfect is that the cause or the means of being held in custody was confinement (“we were held in custody [by/because of] being confined”). The present participle of course allows for such options, but also allows for contemporaneous time (“while being confined”) and result (“with the result that we were confined”). Externally, the perfect participle has little to commend it, being restricted for the most part to later and Byzantine witnesses.

[5:1]  ¹¹ tn Translating the dative as “For freedom” shows the purpose for Christ setting us free; however, it is also possible to take the phrase in the sense of means or instrument (“with [or by] freedom”), referring to the freedom mentioned in 4:31 and implied throughout the letter.

[5:1]  ¹² sn Here the yoke figuratively represents the burdensome nature of slavery.

[8:31]  ¹³ tn Grk “to the Jews.” In NT usage the term ᾿Ιουδαῖοι (Ioudaioi) may refer to the entire Jewish people, the residents of Jerusalem and surrounding territory (i.e., “Judeans”), the authorities in Jerusalem, or merely those who were hostile to Jesus. (For further information see R. G. Bratcher, “‘The Jews’ in the Gospel of John,” BT 26 [1975]: 401-9; also BDAG 479 s.v. ᾿Ιουδαῖος 2.e.) Here the phrase refers to the Jewish people in Jerusalem who had been listening to Jesus’ teaching in the temple and had believed his claim to be the Messiah, hence, “those Judeans who had believed him.” The term “Judeans” is preferred here to the more general “people” because the debate concerns descent from Abraham (v. 33).

[8:31]  ¹⁴ tn Grk “If you continue in my word.”

[8:31]  ¹⁵ tn Or “truly.”

[15:10]  ¹⁶ tn According to BDAG 793 s.v. πειράζω 2.c, “In Ac 15:10 the πειράζειν τὸν θεόν consists in the fact that after God’s will has been clearly made known through granting of the Spirit to the Gentiles (v. 8), some doubt and make trial to see whether God’s will really becomes operative.” All testing of God in Luke is negative: Luke 4:2; 11:16.

[15:10]  ¹⁷ sn A yoke is a wooden bar or frame that joins two animals like oxen or horses so that they can pull a wagon, plow, etc. together. Here it is used figuratively of the restriction that some in the early church wanted to place on Gentile converts to Christianity of observing the law of Moses and having males circumcised. The yoke is a decidedly negative image: Matt 23:4, but cf. Matt 11:29-30.

[15:10]  ¹⁸ tn Or “forefathers”; Grk “fathers.”

[8:15]  ¹⁹ tn Grk “slavery again to fear.”

[8:15]  ²⁰ tn The Greek term υἱοθεσία (Juioqesia) was originally a legal technical term for adoption as a son with full rights of inheritance. BDAG 1024 s.v. notes, “a legal t.t. of ‘adoption’ of children, in our lit., i.e. in Paul, only in a transferred sense of a transcendent filial relationship between God and humans (with the legal aspect, not gender specificity, as major semantic component).”

[8:15]  ²¹ tn Or “in that.”