Isaiah 35:9-10

35:9 No lions will be there,

no ferocious wild animals will be on it ¹  –

they will not be found there.

Those delivered from bondage will travel on it,

35:10 those whom the Lord has ransomed will return that way. ² 

They will enter Zion with a happy shout.

Unending joy will crown them, ³ 

happiness and joy will overwhelm ⁴  them;

grief and suffering will disappear. ⁵ 

Jeremiah 32:15

32:15 For the Lord God of Israel who rules over all ⁶  says, “Houses, fields, and vineyards will again be bought in this land.”’ ⁷ 

Jeremiah 32:1

Jeremiah Buys a Field

32:1 In the tenth year that Zedekiah was ruling over Judah the Lord spoke to Jeremiah. ⁸  That was the same as the eighteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar.

Colossians 1:1

Salutation

1:1 From Paul, ⁹  an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother,

Colossians 1:1

Salutation

1:1 From Paul, ¹⁰  an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother,

Colossians 4:13-18

4:13 For I can testify that he has worked hard ¹¹  for you and for those in Laodicea and Hierapolis. 4:14 Our dear friend Luke the physician and Demas greet you. 4:15 Give my greetings to the brothers and sisters ¹²  who are in Laodicea and to Nympha and the church that meets in her ¹³  house. ¹⁴  4:16 And after ¹⁵  you have read this letter, have it read ¹⁶  to the church of Laodicea. In turn, read the letter from Laodicea ¹⁷  as well. 4:17 And tell Archippus, “See to it that you complete the ministry you received in the Lord.”

4:18 I, Paul, write this greeting by my own hand. ¹⁸  Remember my chains. ¹⁹  Grace be with you. ²⁰ 

Colossians 4:1

4:1 Masters, treat your slaves with justice and fairness, because you know that you also have a master in heaven.

Colossians 1:4-5

1:4 since ²¹  we heard about your faith in Christ Jesus and the love that you have for all the saints. 1:5 Your faith and love have arisen ²²  from the hope laid up ²³  for you in heaven, which you have heard about in the message of truth, the gospel ²⁴ 

[35:9]  ¹ tn Heb “will go up on it”; TEV “will pass that way.”

[35:10]  ² tn Heb “and the redeemed will walk, the ransomed of the Lord will return.”

[35:10]  ³ tn Heb “[will be] on their head[s].” “Joy” may be likened here to a crown (cf. 2 Sam 1:10). The statement may also be an ironic twist on the idiom “earth/dust on the head” (cf. 2 Sam 1:2; 13:19; 15:32; Job 2:12), referring to a mourning practice.

[35:10]  ⁴ tn Heb “will overtake” (NIV); NLT “they will be overcome with.”

[35:10]  ⁵ tn Heb “grief and groaning will flee”; KJV “sorrow and sighing shall flee away.”

[32:15]  ⁶ tn Heb “Yahweh of armies, the God of Israel.” For this title see 7:3 and the study notes on 2:19.

[32:15]  ⁷ sn The significance of the symbolic act performed by Jeremiah as explained here was a further promise (see the “again” statements in 31:4, 5, 23 and the “no longer” statements in 31:12, 29, 34, 40) of future restoration beyond the destruction implied in vv. 3-5. After the interruption of exile, normal life of buying and selling of fields, etc. would again be resumed and former property rights would be recognized.

[32:1]  ⁸ tn Heb “The word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord in the eleventh year of…” See 7:1; 11:1; 18:1; 21:1; 30:1 for this same formula.

[1:1]  ⁹ tn Grk “Paul.” The word “from” is not in the Greek text, but has been supplied to indicate the sender of the letter.

[1:1]  ¹⁰ tn Grk “Paul.” The word “from” is not in the Greek text, but has been supplied to indicate the sender of the letter.

[4:13]  ¹¹ tn Grk “pain.” This word appears only three times in the NT outside of this verse (Rev 16:10, 11; 21:4) where the translation “pain” makes sense. For the present verse it has been translated “worked hard.” See BDAG 852 s.v. πόνος 1.

[4:15]  ¹² tn Grk “brothers.” See note on the phrase “brothers and sisters” in 1:2.

[4:15]  ¹³ tc If the name Nympha is accented with a circumflex on the ultima (Νυμφᾶν, Numfan), then it refers to a man; if it receives an acute accent on the penult (Νύμφαν), the reference is to a woman. Scribes that considered Nympha to be a man’s name had the corresponding masculine pronoun αὐτοῦ here (autou, “his”; so D [F G] Ψ Ï), while those who saw Nympha as a woman read the feminine αὐτῆς here (auth", “her”; B 0278 6 1739^[*^] 1881 sa). Several mss (א A C P 075 33 81 104 326 1175 2464 bo) have αὐτῶν (autwn, “their”), perhaps because of indecisiveness on the gender of Nympha, perhaps because they included ἀδελφούς (adelfou", here translated “brothers and sisters”) as part of the referent. (Perhaps because accents were not part of the original text, scribes were particularly confused here.) The harder reading is certainly αὐτῆς, and thus Nympha should be considered a woman.

[4:15]  ¹⁴ tn Grk “the church in her house.” The meaning is that Paul sends greetings to the church that meets at Nympha’s house.

[4:16]  ¹⁵ tn Grk “when.”

[4:16]  ¹⁶ tn The construction beginning with the imperative ποιήσατε ἵνα…ἀναγνωσθῇ (poihsate Jina…anagnwsqh) should be translated as “have it read” where the conjunction ἵνα functions to mark off its clause as the direct object of the imperative ποιήσατε. The content of the clause (“reading the letter”) is what Paul commands with the imperative ποιήσατε. Thus the translation “have it read” has been used here.

[4:16]  ¹⁷ sn This letter is otherwise unknown, but some have suggested that it is the letter known today as Ephesians.

[4:18]  ¹⁸ tn Grk “the greeting by my hand, of Paul.”

[4:18]  ¹⁹ tn Or “my imprisonment.”

[4:18]  ²⁰ tc Most witnesses, including a few important ones (א² D Ψ 075 0278 Ï lat sy), conclude this letter with ἀμήν (amhn, “amen”). Such a conclusion is routinely added by scribes to NT books because a few of these books originally had such an ending (cf. Rom 16:27; Gal 6:18; Jude 25). A majority of Greek witnesses have the concluding ἀμήν in every NT book except Acts, James, and 3 John (and even in these books, ἀμήν is found in some witnesses). It is thus a predictable variant. Further, the external evidence for the omission is quite compelling (א* A B C F G 048 6 33 81 1739* 1881 sa). The strongly preferred reading is therefore the omission of ἀμήν.

[1:4]  ²¹ tn The adverbial participle ἀκούσαντες (akousante") is understood to be temporal and translated with “since.” A causal idea may also be in the apostle’s mind, but the context emphasizes temporal ideas, e.g., “from the day” (v. 6).

[1:5]  ²² tn Col 1:3-8 form one long sentence in the Greek text and have been divided at the end of v. 4 and v. 6 and within v. 6 for clarity, in keeping with the tendency in contemporary English toward shorter sentences. Thus the phrase “Your faith and love have arisen from the hope” is literally “because of the hope.” The perfect tense “have arisen” was chosen in the English to reflect the fact that the recipients of the letter had acquired this hope at conversion in the past, but that it still remains and motivates them to trust in Christ and to love one another.

[1:5]  ²³ tn BDAG 113 s.v. ἀπόκειμαι 2 renders ἀποκειμένην (apokeimenhn) with the expression “reserved” in this verse.

[1:5]  ²⁴ tn The term “the gospel” (τοῦ εὐαγγελίου, tou euangeliou) is in apposition to “the word of truth” (τῷ λόγῳ τῆς ἀληθείας, tw logw th" alhqeia") as indicated in the translation.