Genesis 19:17

19:17 When they had brought them outside, they ¹  said, “Run ²  for your lives! Don’t look ³  behind you or stop anywhere in the valley! ⁴  Escape to the mountains or you will be destroyed!”

Genesis 19:26

19:26 But Lot’s ⁵  wife looked back longingly ⁶  and was turned into a pillar of salt.

Genesis 19:1

The Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah

19:1 The two angels came to Sodom in the evening while ⁷  Lot was sitting in the city’s gateway. ⁸  When Lot saw them, he got up to meet them and bowed down with his face toward the ground.

Colossians 1:6-12

1:6 that has come to you. Just as in the entire world this gospel ⁹  is bearing fruit and growing, so it has also been bearing fruit and growing ¹⁰  among you from the first day you heard it and understood the grace of God in truth. 1:7 You learned the gospel ¹¹  from Epaphras, our dear fellow slave ¹²  – a ¹³  faithful minister of Christ on our ¹⁴  behalf – 1:8 who also told us of your love in the Spirit.

Paul’s Prayer for the Growth of the Church

1:9 For this reason we also, from the day we heard about you, ¹⁵  have not ceased praying for you and asking God ¹⁶  to fill ¹⁷  you with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, 1:10 so that you may live ¹⁸  worthily of the Lord and please him in all respects ¹⁹  – bearing fruit in every good deed, growing in the knowledge of God, 1:11 being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might for the display of ²⁰  all patience and steadfastness, joyfully 1:12 giving thanks to the Father who has qualified you to share ²¹  in the saints’ ²²  inheritance in the light.

Hebrews 10:38-39

10:38 But my righteous one will live by faith, and if he shrinks back, I ²³  take no pleasure in him. ²⁴  10:39 But we are not among those who shrink back and thus perish, but are among those who have faith and preserve their souls. ²⁵ 

Hebrews 10:2

10:2 For otherwise would they not have ceased to be offered, since the worshipers would have been purified once for all and so have ²⁶  no further consciousness of sin?

Hebrews 2:18

2:18 For since he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are tempted.

[19:17]  ¹ tn Or “one of them”; Heb “he.” Several ancient versions (LXX, Vulgate, Syriac) read the plural “they.” See also the note on “your” in v. 19.

[19:17]  ² tn Heb “escape.”

[19:17]  ³ tn The Hebrew verb translated “look” signifies an intense gaze, not a passing glance. This same verb is used later in v. 26 to describe Lot’s wife’s self-destructive look back at the city.

[19:17]  ⁴ tn Or “in the plain”; Heb “in the circle,” referring to the “circle” or oval area of the Jordan Valley.

[19:26]  ⁵ tn Heb “his”; the referent (Lot) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[19:26]  ⁶ tn The Hebrew verb means “to look intently; to gaze” (see 15:5).

[19:1]  ⁷ tn The disjunctive clause is temporal here, indicating what Lot was doing at the time of their arrival.

[19:1]  ⁸ tn Heb “sitting in the gate of Sodom.” The phrase “the gate of Sodom” has been translated “the city’s gateway” for stylistic reasons.

[1:6]  ⁹ tn Grk “just as in the entire world it is bearing fruit.” The antecedent (“the gospel”) of the implied subject (“it”) of ἐστιν (estin) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[1:6]  ¹⁰ tn Though the participles are periphrastic with the present tense verb ἐστίν (estin), the presence of the temporal indicator “from the day” in the next clause indicates that this is a present tense that reaches into the past and should be translated as “has been bearing fruit and growing.” For a discussion of this use of the present tense, see ExSyn 519-20.

[1:7]  ¹¹ tn Or “learned it.” The Greek text simply has “you learned” without the reference to “the gospel,” but “the gospel” is supplied to clarify the sense of the clause. Direct objects were frequently omitted in Greek when clear from the context.

[1:7]  ¹² tn The Greek word translated “fellow slave” is σύνδουλος (sundoulo"); the σύν- prefix here denotes association. Though δοῦλος is normally translated “servant,” the word does not bear the connotation of a free individual serving another. BDAG notes that “‘servant’ for ‘slave’ is largely confined to Biblical transl. and early American times…in normal usage at the present time the two words are carefully distinguished” (BDAG 260 s.v.). The most accurate translation is “bondservant” (sometimes found in the ASV for δοῦλος), in that it often indicates one who sells himself into slavery to another. But as this is archaic, few today understand its force.

[1:7]  ¹³ tn The Greek text has “who (ὅς, Jos) is a faithful minister.” The above translation conveys the antecedent of the relative pronoun quite well and avoids the redundancy with the following substantival participle of v. 8, namely, “who told” (ὁ δηλώσας, Jo dhlwsa").

[1:7]  ¹⁴ tc ‡ Judging by the superior witnesses for the first person pronoun ἡμῶν (Jhmwn, “us”; Ì⁴⁶ א* A B D* F G 326* 1505 al) vs. the second person pronoun ὑμῶν (Jumwn, “you”; found in א² C D¹ Ψ 075 33 1739 1881 Ï lat sy co), ἡμῶν should be regarded as original. Although it is possible that ἡμῶν was an early alteration of ὑμῶν (either unintentionally, as dittography, since it comes seventeen letters after the previous ἡμῶν; or intentionally, to conform to the surrounding first person pronouns), this supposition is difficult to maintain in light of the varied and valuable witnesses for this reading. Further, the second person is both embedded in the verb ἐμάθετε (emaqete) and is explicit in v. 8 (ὑμῶν). Hence, the motivation to change to the first person pronoun is counterbalanced by such evidence. The second person pronoun may have been introduced unintentionally via homoioarcton with the ὑπέρ (Juper) that immediately precedes it. As well, the second person reading is somewhat harder for it seems to address Epaphras’ role only in relation to Paul and his colleagues, rather than in relation to the Colossians. Nevertheless, the decision must be based ultimately on external evidence (because the internal evidence can be variously interpreted), and this strongly supports ἡμῶν.

[1:9]  ¹⁵ tn Or “heard about it”; Grk “heard.” There is no direct object stated in the Greek (direct objects were frequently omitted in Greek when clear from the context). A direct object is expected by an English reader, however, so most translations supply one. Here, however, it is not entirely clear what the author “heard”: a number of translations supply “it” (so KJV, NASB, NRSV; NAB “this”), but this could refer back either to (1) “your love in the Spirit” at the end of v. 8, or (2) “your faith in Christ Jesus and the love that you have for all the saints” (v. 4). In light of this uncertainty, other translations supply “about you” (TEV, NIV, CEV, NLT). This is preferred by the present translation since, while it does not resolve the ambiguity entirely, it does make it less easy for the English reader to limit the reference only to “your love in the Spirit” at the end of v. 8.

[1:9]  ¹⁶ tn The term “God” does not appear in the Greek text, but the following reference to “the knowledge of his will” makes it clear that “God” is in view as the object of the “praying and asking,” and should therefore be included in the English translation for clarity.

[1:9]  ¹⁷ tn The ἵνα (Jina) clause has been translated as substantival, indicating the content of the prayer and asking. The idea of purpose may also be present in this clause.

[1:10]  ¹⁸ tn The infinitive περιπατῆσαι (peripathsai, “to walk, to live, to live one’s life”) is best taken as an infinitive of purpose related to “praying” (προσευχόμενοι, proseucomenoi) and “asking” (αἰτούμενοι, aitoumenoi) in v. 9 and is thus translated as “that you may live.”

[1:10]  ¹⁹ tn BDAG 129 s.v. ἀρεσκεία states that ἀρεσκείαν (areskeian) refers to a “desire to please εἰς πᾶσαν ἀ. to please (the Lord) in all respects Col 1:10.”

[1:11]  ²⁰ tn The expression “for the display of” is an attempt to convey in English the force of the Greek preposition εἰς (eis) in this context.

[1:12]  ²¹ tn BDAG 473 s.v. ἱκανόω states, “τινὰ εἴς τι someone for someth. Col 1:12.” The point of the text is that God has qualified the saints for a “share” or “portion” in the inheritance of the saints.

[1:12]  ²² tn Grk “the inheritance of the saints.” The genitive noun τῶν ἁγίων (twn Jagiwn) is a possessive genitive: “the saints’ inheritance.”

[10:38]  ²³ tn Grk “my soul.”

[10:38]  ²⁴ sn A quotation from Hab 2:4.

[10:39]  ²⁵ tn Grk “not…of shrinking back to perdition but of faith to the preservation of the soul.”

[10:2]  ²⁶ tn Grk “the worshipers, having been purified once for all, would have.”