Genesis 17:10-14

17:10 This is my requirement that you and your descendants after you must keep: ¹  Every male among you must be circumcised. ²  17:11 You must circumcise the flesh of your foreskins. This will be a reminder ³  of the covenant between me and you. 17:12 Throughout your generations every male among you who is eight days old ⁴  must be circumcised, whether born in your house or bought with money from any foreigner who is not one of your descendants. 17:13 They must indeed be circumcised, ⁵  whether born in your house or bought with money. The sign of my covenant ⁶  will be visible in your flesh as a permanent ⁷  reminder. 17:14 Any uncircumcised male ⁸  who has not been circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin will be cut off ⁹  from his people – he has failed to carry out my requirement.” ¹⁰ 

Leviticus 12:3

12:3 On ¹¹  the eighth day the flesh of his foreskin ¹²  must be circumcised.

Romans 4:9-11

4:9 Is this blessedness ¹³  then for ¹⁴  the circumcision ¹⁵  or also for ¹⁶  the uncircumcision? For we say, “faith was credited to Abraham as righteousness.” ¹⁷  4:10 How then was it credited to him? Was he circumcised at the time, or not? No, he was not circumcised but uncircumcised! 4:11 And he received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised, ¹⁸  so that he would become ¹⁹  the father of all those who believe but have never been circumcised, ²⁰  that they too could have righteousness credited to them.

Galatians 3:17

3:17 What I am saying is this: The law that came four hundred thirty years later does not cancel a covenant previously ratified by God, ²¹  so as to invalidate the promise.

[17:10]  ¹ tn Heb “This is my covenant that you must keep between me and you and your descendants after you.”

[17:10]  ² sn For a discussion of male circumcision as the sign of the covenant in this passage see M. V. Fox, “The Sign of the Covenant: Circumcision in the Light of the Priestly ‘ot Etiologies,” RB 81 (1974): 557-96.

[17:11]  ³ tn Or “sign.”

[17:12]  ⁴ tn Heb “the son of eight days.”

[17:13]  ⁵ tn The emphatic construction employs the Niphal imperfect tense (collective singular) and the Niphal infinitive.

[17:13]  ⁶ tn Heb “my covenant.” Here in v. 13 the Hebrew word בְּרִית (bÿrit) refers to the outward, visible sign, or reminder, of the covenant. For the range of meaning of the term, see the note on the word “requirement” in v. 9.

[17:13]  ⁷ tn Or “an eternal.”

[17:14]  ⁸ tn The disjunctive clause calls attention to the “uncircumcised male” and what will happen to him.

[17:14]  ⁹ tn Heb “that person will be cut off.” The words “that person” have not been included in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[17:14]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “he has broken my covenant.” The noun בְּרִית (bÿrit) here refers to the obligation required by God in conjunction with the covenantal agreement. For the range of meaning of the term, see the note on the word “requirement” in v. 9.

[12:3]  ¹¹ tn Heb “and in….”

[12:3]  ¹² tn This rendering, “the flesh of his foreskin,” is literal. Based on Lev 15:2-3, one could argue that the Hebrew word for “flesh” here (בָּשָׂר, basar) is euphemistic for the male genitals and therefore translate “the foreskin of his member” (see, e.g., J. Milgrom, Leviticus [AB], 1:748). A number of English versions omit this reference to the foreskin and mention only circumcision, presumably for euphemistic reasons (cf. NIV, NCV, TEV, CEV, NLT).

[4:9]  ¹³ tn Or “happiness.”

[4:9]  ¹⁴ tn Grk “upon.”

[4:9]  ¹⁵ sn See the note on “circumcision” in 2:25.

[4:9]  ¹⁶ tn Grk “upon.”

[4:9]  ¹⁷ sn A quotation from Gen 15:6.

[4:11]  ¹⁸ tn Grk “of the faith, the one [existing] in uncircumcision.”

[4:11]  ¹⁹ tn Grk “that he might be,” giving the purpose of v. 11a.

[4:11]  ²⁰ tn Grk “through uncircumcision.”

[3:17]  ²¹ tc Most mss (D F G I 0176 0278 Ï it sy) read “ratified by God in Christ” whereas the omission of “in Christ” is the reading in Ì⁴⁶ א A B C P Ψ 6 33 81 1175 1739 1881 2464 pc co. The shorter reading is strongly supported by the ms evidence, and it is probable that a copyist inserted the words as an interpretive gloss. However, this form of the “in Christ” expression is somewhat atypical in the corpus Paulinum (εἰς Χριστόν [ei" Criston] rather than ἐν Χριστῷ [en Cristw]), a fact which tempers one’s certainty about the shorter reading. Nevertheless, the expression is used more in Galatians than in any other of Paul’s letters (Gal 2:16; 3:24, 27), and may have been suggested by such texts to early copyists.