Genesis 29:11

29:11 Then Jacob kissed Rachel and began to weep loudly. ¹ 

Genesis 33:4

33:4 But Esau ran to meet him, embraced him, hugged his neck, and kissed him. Then they both wept.

Genesis 33:2

33:2 He put the servants and their children in front, with Leah and her children behind them, and Rachel and Joseph behind them. ² 

Genesis 15:5

15:5 The Lord ³  took him outside and said, “Gaze into the sky and count the stars – if you are able to count them!” Then he said to him, “So will your descendants be.”

Genesis 19:1

The Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah

19:1 The two angels came to Sodom in the evening while ⁴  Lot was sitting in the city’s gateway. ⁵  When Lot saw them, he got up to meet them and bowed down with his face toward the ground.

Matthew 26:48

26:48 (Now the betrayer ⁶  had given them a sign, saying, “The one I kiss is the man. ⁷  Arrest him!”) ⁸ 

Romans 16:16

16:16 Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the churches of Christ greet you.

Romans 16:1

Personal Greetings

16:1 Now I commend to you our sister Phoebe, who is a servant ⁹  of the church in Cenchrea,

Colossians 1:20

1:20 and through him to reconcile all things to himself by making peace through the blood of his cross – through him, ¹⁰  whether things on earth or things in heaven.

Colossians 1:1

Salutation

1:1 From Paul, ¹¹  an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother,

Colossians 1:26

1:26 that is, the mystery that has been kept hidden from ages and generations, but has now been revealed to his saints.

[29:11]  ¹ tn Heb “and he lifted up his voice and wept.” The idiom calls deliberate attention to the fact that Jacob wept out loud.

[33:2]  ² sn This kind of ranking according to favoritism no doubt fed the jealousy over Joseph that later becomes an important element in the narrative. It must have been painful to the family to see that they were expendable.

[15:5]  ³ tn Heb “he”; the referent (the Lord) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[19:1]  ⁴ tn The disjunctive clause is temporal here, indicating what Lot was doing at the time of their arrival.

[19:1]  ⁵ tn Heb “sitting in the gate of Sodom.” The phrase “the gate of Sodom” has been translated “the city’s gateway” for stylistic reasons.

[26:48]  ⁶ tn Grk “the one who betrays him.”

[26:48]  ⁷ tn Grk “The one I kiss is he.”

[26:48]  ⁸ sn This remark is parenthetical within the narrative and has thus been placed in parentheses.

[16:1]  ⁹ tn Or “deaconess.” It is debated whether διάκονος (diakonos) here refers to a specific office within the church. One contextual argument used to support this view is that Phoebe is associated with a particular church, Cenchrea, and as such would therefore be a deacon of that church. In the NT some who are called διάκονος are related to a particular church, yet the scholarly consensus is that such individuals are not deacons, but “servants” or “ministers” (other viable translations for διάκονος). For example, Epaphras is associated with the church in Colossians and is called a διάκονος in Col 1:7, but no contemporary translation regards him as a deacon. In 1 Tim 4:6 Paul calls Timothy a διάκονος; Timothy was associated with the church in Ephesus, but he obviously was not a deacon. In addition, the lexical evidence leans away from this view: Within the NT, the διακον- word group rarely functions with a technical nuance. In any case, the evidence is not compelling either way. The view accepted in the translation above is that Phoebe was a servant of the church, not a deaconess, although this conclusion should be regarded as tentative.

[1:20]  ¹⁰ tc The presence or absence of the second occurrence of the phrase δι᾿ αὐτοῦ (di’ autou, “through him”) is a difficult textual problem to solve. External evidence is fairly evenly divided. Many ancient and excellent witnesses lack the phrase (B D* F G I 0278 81 1175 1739 1881 2464 al latt sa), but equally important witnesses have it (Ì⁴⁶ א A C D¹ Ψ 048^vid 33 Ï). Both readings have strong Alexandrian support, which makes the problem difficult to decide on external evidence alone. Internal evidence points to the inclusion of the phrase as original. The word immediately preceding the phrase is the masculine pronoun αὐτοῦ (autou); thus the possibility of omission through homoioteleuton in various witnesses is likely. Scribes might have deleted the phrase because of perceived redundancy or awkwardness in the sense: The shorter reading is smoother and more elegant, so scribes would be prone to correct the text in that direction. As far as style is concerned, repetition of key words and phrases for emphasis is not foreign to the corpus Paulinum (see, e.g., Rom 8:23, Eph 1:13, 2 Cor 12:7). In short, it is easier to account for the shorter reading arising from the longer reading than vice versa, so the longer reading is more likely original.

[1:1]  ¹¹ tn Grk “Paul.” The word “from” is not in the Greek text, but has been supplied to indicate the sender of the letter.