Isaiah 40:1-2

The Lord Returns to Jerusalem

40:1 “Comfort, comfort my people,”

says your ¹  God.

40:2 “Speak kindly to ²  Jerusalem, ³  and tell her

that her time of warfare is over, ⁴ 

that her punishment is completed. ⁵ 

For the Lord has made her pay double ⁶  for all her sins.”

Colossians 1:4

1:4 since ⁷  we heard about your faith in Christ Jesus and the love that you have for all the saints.

Ephesians 6:22

6:22 I have sent him to you for this very purpose, that you may know our circumstances ⁸  and that he may encourage your hearts.

Ephesians 6:1

6:1 Children, ⁹  obey your parents in the Lord ¹⁰  for this is right.

Ephesians 3:2

3:2 if indeed ¹¹  you have heard of the stewardship ¹²  of God’s grace that was given to me for you,

Ephesians 4:18

4:18 They are darkened in their understanding, ¹³  being alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardness of their hearts.

Ephesians 5:11

5:11 Do not participate in the unfruitful deeds of darkness, but rather ¹⁴  expose them. ¹⁵ 

Ephesians 5:14

5:14 For everything made evident is light, and for this reason it says: ¹⁶ 

“Awake, ¹⁷  O sleeper! ¹⁸ 

Rise from the dead,

and Christ will shine on you!” ¹⁹ 

Ephesians 5:2

5:2 and live ²⁰  in love, just as Christ also loved us ²¹  and gave himself for us, a sacrificial and fragrant offering ²²  to God.

Ephesians 2:16

2:16 and to reconcile them both in one body to God through the cross, by which the hostility has been killed. ²³ 

[40:1]  ¹ tn The pronominal suffix is second masculine plural. The identity of the addressee is uncertain: (1) God’s people may be addressed, or (2) the unidentified heralds commanded to comfort Jerusalem.

[40:2]  ² tn Heb “speak to the heart of Jerusalem.” Jerusalem is personified as a woman.

[40:2]  ³ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[40:2]  ⁴ tn Heb “that she is filled [with] her warfare.” Some understand צָבָא (tsavah, “warfare”) as meaning “hard service” or “compulsory labor” in this context.

[40:2]  ⁵ tn Heb “that her punishment is accepted [as satisfactory].”

[40:2]  ⁶ tn Heb “for she has received from the hand of the Lord double.” The principle of the double portion in punishment is also seen in Jer 16:18; 17:18 and Rev 18:6. For examples of the double portion in Israelite law, see Exod 22:4, 7, 9 (double restitution by a thief) and Deut 21:17 (double inheritance portion for the firstborn).

[1:4]  ⁷ 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).

[6:22]  ⁸ tn Grk “the things concerning us.”

[6:1]  ⁹ tn The use of the article τά (ta) with τέκνα (tekna) functions in a generic way to distinguish this group from husbands, wives, fathers and slaves and is left, therefore, untranslated. The generic article is used with γύναῖκες (gunaikes) in 5:22, ἄνδρες (andres) in 5:25, δοῦλοι (douloi) in 6:5, and κύριοι (kurioi) in 6:9.

[6:1]  ¹⁰ tc B D* F G as well as a few versional and patristic representatives lack “in the Lord” (ἐν κυρίῳ, en kuriw), while the phrase is well represented in Ì⁴⁶ א A D¹ I^vid Ψ 0278 0285 33 1739 1881 Ï sy co. Scribes may have thought that the phrase could be regarded a qualifier on the kind of parents a child should obey (viz., only Christian parents), and would thus be tempted to delete the phrase to counter such an interpretation. It is unlikely that the phrase would have been added, since the form used to express such sentiment in this Haustafel is ὡς τῷ κυρίῳ/Χριστῷ (Jw" tw kuriw/Cristw, “as to the Lord/Christ”; see 5:22; 6:5). Even though the witnesses for the omission are impressive, it is more likely that the phrase was deleted than added by scribal activity.

[3:2]  ¹¹ sn If indeed. The author is not doubting whether his audience has heard, but is rather using provocative language (if indeed) to engage his audience in thinking about the magnificence of God’s grace. However, in English translation, the apodosis (“then”-clause) does not come until v. 13, leaving the protasis (“if”-clause) dangling. Eph 3:2-7 constitute one sentence in Greek.

[3:2]  ¹² tn Or “administration,” “dispensation,” “commission.”

[4:18]  ¹³ tn In the Greek text this clause is actually subordinate to περιπατεῖ (peripatei) in v. 17. It was broken up in the English translation so as to avoid an unnecessarily long and cumbersome statement.

[5:11]  ¹⁴ tn The Greek conjunction καὶ (kai) seems to be functioning here ascensively, (i.e., “even”), but is difficult to render in this context using good English. It may read something like: “but rather even expose them!”

[5:11]  ¹⁵ tn Grk “rather even expose.”

[5:14]  ¹⁶ sn The following passage has been typeset as poetry because many scholars regard this passage as poetic or hymnic. These terms are used broadly to refer to the genre of writing, not to the content. There are two broad criteria for determining if a passage is poetic or hymnic: “(a) stylistic: a certain rhythmical lilt when the passages are read aloud, the presence of parallelismus membrorum (i.e., an arrangement into couplets), the semblance of some metre, and the presence of rhetorical devices such as alliteration, chiasmus, and antithesis; and (b) linguistic: an unusual vocabulary, particularly the presence of theological terms, which is different from the surrounding context” (P. T. O’Brien, Philippians [NIGTC], 188-89). Classifying a passage as hymnic or poetic is important because understanding this genre can provide keys to interpretation. However, not all scholars agree that the above criteria are present in this passage, so the decision to typeset it as poetry should be viewed as a tentative decision about its genre.

[5:14]  ¹⁷ tn Grk “Rise up.”

[5:14]  ¹⁸ tn The articular nominative participle ὁ καθεύδων (Jo kaqeudwn) is probably functioning as a nominative for vocative. Thus, it has been translated as “O sleeper.”

[5:14]  ¹⁹ sn A composite quotation, possibly from Isa 26:19, 51:17, 52:1, and 60:1.

[5:2]  ²⁰ tn Grk “walk.” The NT writers often used the verb “walk” (περιπατέω, peripatew) to refer to ethical conduct (cf. Rom 8:4; Gal 5:16; Col 4:5).

[5:2]  ²¹ tc A number of important witnesses have ὑμᾶς (Jumas, “you”; e.g., א* A B P 0159 81 1175 al it co as well as several fathers). Other, equally important witnesses read ἡμᾶς (Jhmas, “us”; Ì⁴⁶ א² D F G Ψ 0278 33 1739 1881 al lat sy). It is possible that ἡμᾶς was accidentally introduced via homoioarcton with the previous word (ἠγάπησεν, hgaphsen). On the other hand, ὑμᾶς may have been motivated by the preceding ὑμῖν (Jumin) in 4:32 and second person verbs in 5:1, 2. Further, the flow of argument seems to require the first person pronoun. A decision is difficult to make, but the first person pronoun has a slightly greater probability of being original.

[5:2]  ²² tn Grk “an offering and sacrifice to God as a smell of fragrance.” The first expression, προσφορὰν καὶ θυσίαν (prosforan kai qusian), is probably a hendiadys and has been translated such that “sacrificial” modifies “offering.” The second expression, εἰς ὀσμὴν εὐωδίας (ei" osmhn euwdia", “as a smell of fragrance”) has been translated as “a fragrant offering”; see BDAG 728-29 s.v. ὀσμή 2. Putting these two together in a clear fashion in English yields the translation: “a sacrificial and fragrant offering to God.”

[2:16]  ²³ tn Grk “by killing the hostility in himself.”