Joshua 1:6-7

1:6 Be strong and brave! You must lead these people in the conquest of this land that I solemnly promised their ancestors I would hand over to them. ¹  1:7 Make sure you are ²  very strong and brave! Carefully obey ³  all the law my servant Moses charged you to keep! ⁴  Do not swerve from it to the right or to the left, so that you may be successful ⁵  in all you do. ⁶ 

Joshua 1:9

1:9 I repeat, ⁷  be strong and brave! Don’t be afraid and don’t panic, ⁸  for I, the Lord your God, am with you in all you do.” ⁹ 

Joshua 1:1

The Lord Commissions Joshua

1:1 After Moses the Lord’s servant died, the Lord said to Joshua son of Nun, Moses’ assistant:

Joshua 1:6

1:6 Be strong and brave! You must lead these people in the conquest of this land that I solemnly promised their ancestors I would hand over to them. ¹⁰ 

Psalms 27:14

27:14 Rely ¹¹  on the Lord!

Be strong and confident! ¹² 

Rely on the Lord!

Psalms 27:1

Psalm 27 ¹³ 

By David.

27:1 The Lord delivers and vindicates me! ¹⁴ 

I fear no one! ¹⁵ 

The Lord protects my life!

I am afraid of no one! ¹⁶ 

Colossians 1:21-22

Paul’s Goal in Ministry

1:21 And you were at one time strangers and enemies in your ¹⁷  minds ¹⁸  as expressed through ¹⁹  your evil deeds, 1:22 but now he has reconciled you ²⁰  by his physical body through death to present you holy, without blemish, and blameless before him –

Colossians 1:2

1:2 to the saints, the faithful ²¹  brothers and sisters ²²  in Christ, at Colossae. Grace and peace to you ²³  from God our Father! ²⁴ 

Colossians 2:14

2:14 He has destroyed ²⁵  what was against us, a certificate of indebtedness ²⁶  expressed in decrees opposed to us. He has taken it away by nailing it to the cross.

Colossians 1:5-7

1:5 Your faith and love have arisen ²⁷  from the hope laid up ²⁸  for you in heaven, which you have heard about in the message of truth, the gospel ²⁹  1:6 that has come to you. Just as in the entire world this gospel ³⁰  is bearing fruit and growing, so it has also been bearing fruit and growing ³¹  among you from the first day you heard it and understood the grace of God in truth. 1:7 You learned the gospel ³²  from Epaphras, our dear fellow slave ³³  – a ³⁴  faithful minister of Christ on our ³⁵  behalf –

Colossians 1:1

Salutation

1:1 From Paul, ³⁶  an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother,

Colossians 3:7

3:7 You also lived your lives ³⁷  in this way at one time, when you used to live among them.

[1:6]  ¹ tn Heb “For you will cause these people to inherit the land that I swore to their fathers to give to them.” The pronoun “them” at the end of the verse refers to either the people or to the fathers.

[1:7]  ² tn Or “Only be.”

[1:7]  ³ tn Heb “so you can be careful to do.” The use of the infinitive לִשְׁמֹר (lishmor, “to keep”) after the imperatives suggests that strength and bravery will be necessary for obedience. Another option is to take the form לִשְׁמֹר as a vocative lamed (ל) with imperative (see Isa 38:20 for an example of this construction), which could be translated, “Indeed, be careful!”

[1:7]  ⁴ tn Heb “commanded you.”

[1:7]  ⁵ tn Heb “be wise,” but the word can mean “be successful” by metonymy.

[1:7]  ⁶ tn Heb “in all which you go.”

[1:9]  ⁷ tn Heb “Have I not commanded you?” The rhetorical question emphasizes the importance of the following command by reminding the listener that it is being repeated.

[1:9]  ⁸ tn Or perhaps, “don’t get discouraged!”

[1:9]  ⁹ tn Heb “in all which you go.”

[1:6]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “For you will cause these people to inherit the land that I swore to their fathers to give to them.” The pronoun “them” at the end of the verse refers to either the people or to the fathers.

[27:14]  ¹¹ tn Or “wait.”

[27:14]  ¹² tn Heb “be strong and let your heart be confident.”

[27:1]  ¹³ sn Psalm 27. The author is confident of the Lord’s protection and asks the Lord to vindicate him.

[27:1]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “the Lord [is] my light and my deliverance.” “Light” is often used as a metaphor for deliverance and the life/blessings it brings. See Pss 37:6; 97:11; 112:4; Isa 49:6; 51:4; Mic 7:8. Another option is that “light” refers here to divine guidance (see Ps 43:3).

[27:1]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “Whom shall I fear?” The rhetorical question anticipates the answer, “No one!”

[27:1]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “Of whom shall I be afraid?” The rhetorical question anticipates the answer, “No one!”

[1:21]  ¹⁷ tn The article τῇ (th) has been translated as a possessive pronoun (ExSyn 215).

[1:21]  ¹⁸ tn Although διανοία (dianoia) is singular in Greek, the previous plural noun ἐχθρούς (ecqrous) indicates that all those from Colossae are in view here.

[1:21]  ¹⁹ tn The dative ἐν τοῖς ἔργοις τοῖς πονηροῖς (en toi" ergoi" toi" ponhroi") is taken as means, indicating the avenue through which hostility in the mind is revealed and made known.

[1:22]  ²⁰ tc Some of the better representatives of the Alexandrian and Western texts have a passive verb here instead of the active ἀποκατήλλαξεν (apokathllaxen, “he has reconciled”): ἀποκατηλλάγητε (apokathllaghte) in (Ì⁴⁶) B, ἀποκατήλλακται [sic] (apokathllaktai) in 33, and ἀποκαταλλαγέντες (apokatallagente") in D* F G. Yet the active verb is strongly supported by א A C D² Ψ 048 075 [0278] 1739 1881 Ï lat sy. Internally, the passive creates an anacoluthon in that it looks back to the accusative ὑμᾶς (Juma", “you”) of v. 21 and leaves the following παραστῆσαι (parasthsai) dangling (“you were reconciled…to present you”). The passive reading is certainly the harder reading. As such, it may well explain the rise of the other readings. At the same time, it is possible that the passive was produced by scribes who wanted some symmetry between the ποτε (pote, “at one time”) of v. 21 and the νυνὶ δέ (nuni de, “but now”) of v. 22: Since a passive periphrastic participle is used in v. 21, there may have a temptation to produce a corresponding passive form in v. 22, handling the ὑμᾶς of v. 21 by way of constructio ad sensum. Since παραστῆσαι occurs ten words later, it may not have been considered in this scribal modification. Further, the Western reading (ἀποκαταλλαγέντες) hardly seems to have arisen from ἀποκατηλλάγητε (contra TCGNT 555). As difficult as this decision is, the preferred reading is the active form because it is superior externally and seems to explain the rise of all forms of the passive readings.

[1:2]  ²¹ tn Grk “and faithful.” The construction in Greek (as well as Paul’s style) suggests that the saints are identical to the faithful; hence, the καί (kai) is best left untranslated (cf. Eph 1:1). See ExSyn 281-82.

[1:2]  ²² tn Grk “brothers,” but the Greek word may be used for “brothers and sisters” or “fellow Christians” as here (cf. BDAG 18 s.v. ἀδελφός 1, where considerable nonbiblical evidence for the plural ἀδελφοί [adelfoi] meaning “brothers and sisters” is cited).

[1:2]  ²³ tn Or “Grace to you and peace.”

[1:2]  ²⁴ tc Most witnesses, including some important ones (א A C F G I [P] 075 Ï it bo), read “and the Lord Jesus Christ” at the end of this verse, no doubt to conform the wording to the typical Pauline salutation. However, excellent and early witnesses (B D K L Ψ 33 81 1175 1505 1739 1881 al sa) lack this phrase. Since the omission is inexplicable as arising from the longer reading (otherwise, these mss would surely have deleted the phrase in the rest of the corpus Paulinum), it is surely authentic.

[2:14]  ²⁵ tn The participle ἐξαλείψας (exaleiyas) is a temporal adverbial participle of contemporaneous time related to the previous verb συνεζωοποίησεν (sunezwopoihsen), but has been translated as a finite verb because of the complexity of the Greek sentence and the tendency of contemporary English to use shorter sentences. For the meaning “destroy” see BDAG 344-45 s.v. ἐξαλείφω 2.

[2:14]  ²⁶ tn On the translation of χειρόγραφον (ceirografon), see BDAG 1083 s.v. which refers to it as “a certificate of indebtedness.”

[1:5]  ²⁷ 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]  ²⁸ tn BDAG 113 s.v. ἀπόκειμαι 2 renders ἀποκειμένην (apokeimenhn) with the expression “reserved” in this verse.

[1:5]  ²⁹ 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.

[1:6]  ³⁰ 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]  ³¹ 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]  ³² 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]  ³³ 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]  ³⁴ 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]  ³⁵ 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.

[1:1]  ³⁶ tn Grk “Paul.” The word “from” is not in the Greek text, but has been supplied to indicate the sender of the letter.

[3:7]  ³⁷ tn Grk “you also walked.” The verb περιπατέω (peripatew) is commonly used in the NT to refer to behavior or conduct of one’s life (L&N 41.11).