Leviticus 11:44-45

11:44 for I am the Lord your God and you are to sanctify yourselves and be holy because I am holy. You must not defile yourselves by any of the swarming things that creep on the ground, 11:45 for I am the Lord who brought you up from the land of Egypt to be your God, ¹  and you are to be holy because I am holy.

Leviticus 19:2

19:2 “Speak to the whole congregation of the Israelites and tell them, ‘You must be holy because I, the Lord your God, am holy.

Leviticus 20:24

20:24 So I have said to you: You yourselves will possess their land and I myself will give it to you for a possession, a land flowing with milk and honey. I am the Lord your God who has set you apart from the other peoples. ² 

Leviticus 20:26

20:26 You must be holy to me because I, the Lord, am holy, and I have set you apart from the other peoples to be mine.

Leviticus 21:7-8

21:7 They must not take a wife defiled by prostitution, ³  nor are they to take a wife divorced from her husband, ⁴  for the priest ⁵  is holy to his God. ⁶  21:8 You must sanctify him because he presents the food of your God. He must be holy to you because I, the Lord who sanctifies you all, ⁷  am holy.

Leviticus 21:23

21:23 but he must not go into the veil-canopy ⁸  or step forward to the altar because he has a physical flaw. Thus ⁹  he must not profane my holy places, for I am the Lord who sanctifies them.’”

Deuteronomy 7:6

7:6 For you are a people holy ¹⁰  to the Lord your God. He ¹¹  has chosen you to be his people, prized ¹²  above all others on the face of the earth.

Deuteronomy 26:19

26:19 Then ¹³  he will elevate you above all the nations he has made and you will receive praise, fame, and honor. ¹⁴  You will ¹⁵  be a people holy to the Lord your God, as he has said.

Deuteronomy 28:9

28:9 The Lord will designate you as his holy people just as he promised you, if you keep his commandments ¹⁶  and obey him. ¹⁷ 

Isaiah 62:12

62:12 They will be called, “The Holy People,

the Ones Protected ¹⁸  by the Lord.”

You will be called, “Sought After,

City Not Abandoned.”

Isaiah 62:1

The Lord Takes Delight in Zion

62:1 “For the sake of Zion I will not be silent;

for the sake of Jerusalem ¹⁹  I will not be quiet,

until her vindication shines brightly ²⁰ 

and her deliverance burns like a torch.”

Colossians 3:17

3:17 And whatever you do in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

Colossians 3:1

Exhortations to Seek the Things Above

3:1 Therefore, if you have been raised with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.

Colossians 1:27

1:27 God wanted to make known to them the glorious ²¹  riches of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.

Colossians 1:1

Salutation

1:1 From Paul, ²²  an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother,

Colossians 1:15-16

The Supremacy of Christ

1:15 ²³ He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn ²⁴  over all creation, ²⁵ 

1:16 for all things in heaven and on earth were created by him – all things, whether visible or invisible, whether thrones or dominions, ²⁶  whether principalities or powers – all things were created through him and for him.

[11:45]  ¹ tn Heb “to be to you for a God.”

[20:24]  ¹ tc Here and with the same phrase in v. 26, the LXX adds “all,” resulting in the reading “all the peoples.”

[21:7]  ¹ tn Heb “A wife harlot and profaned they shall not take.” The structure of the verse (e.g., “wife” at the beginning of the two main clauses) suggests that “harlot and profaned” constitutes a hendiadys, meaning “a wife defiled by harlotry” (see the explanation in B. A. Levine, Leviticus [JPSTC], 143, as opposed to that in J. E. Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 343, 348; cf. v. 14 below). Cf. NASB “a woman who is profaned by harlotry.”

[21:7]  ² sn For a helpful discussion of divorce in general and as it relates to this passage see B. A. Levine, Leviticus (JPSTC), 143-44.

[21:7]  ³ tn Heb “he”; the referent (the priest) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[21:7]  ⁴ tn The pronoun “he” in this clause refers to the priest, not the former husband of the divorced woman.

[21:8]  ¹ tn The three previous second person references in this verse are all singular, but this reference is plural. By adding “all” this grammatical distinction is preserved in the translation.

[21:23]  ¹ sn See the note on Lev 16:2 for the rendering “veil-canopy.”

[21:23]  ² tn Heb “And.” The Hebrew conjunction ו (vav, “and”) can be considered to have resultative force here.

[7:6]  ¹ tn That is, “set apart.”

[7:6]  ² tn Heb “the Lord your God.” The pronoun has been used in the translation for stylistic reasons to avoid redundancy.

[7:6]  ³ tn Or “treasured” (so NIV, NRSV); NLT “his own special treasure.” The Hebrew term סְגֻלָּה (sÿgullah) describes Israel as God’s choice people, those whom he elected and who are most precious to him (cf. Exod 19:4-6; Deut 14:2; 26:18; 1 Chr 29:3; Ps 135:4; Eccl 2:8 Mal 3:17). See E. Carpenter, NIDOTTE 3:224.

[26:19]  ¹ tn Heb “so that.” Verses 18-19 are one sentence in the Hebrew text, but the translation divides it into three sentences for stylistic reasons. The first clause in verse 19 gives a result of the preceding clause. When Israel keeps God’s law, God will bless them with fame and honor (cf. NAB “he will then raise you high in praise and renown and glory”; NLT “And if you do, he will make you greater than any other nation”).

[26:19]  ² tn Heb “for praise and for a name and for glory.”

[26:19]  ³ tn Heb “and to be.” A new sentence was started here for stylistic reasons.

[28:9]  ¹ tn Heb “the commandments of the Lord your God.” See note on “he” in the previous verse.

[28:9]  ² tn Heb “and walk in his ways” (so NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV, NLT).

[62:12]  ¹ tn Or “the redeemed of the Lord” (KJV, NAB).

[62:1]  ¹ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[62:1]  ² tn Heb “goes forth like brightness.”

[1:27]  ¹ tn The genitive noun τῆς δόξης (ths doxhs) is an attributive genitive and has therefore been translated as “glorious riches.”

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

[1:15]  ¹ sn This 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.

[1:15]  ² tn The Greek term πρωτότοκος (prwtotokos) could refer either to first in order of time, such as a first born child, or it could refer to one who is preeminent in rank. M. J. Harris, Colossians and Philemon (EGGNT), 43, expresses the meaning of the word well: “The ‘firstborn’ was either the eldest child in a family or a person of preeminent rank. The use of this term to describe the Davidic king in Ps 88:28 LXX (=Ps 89:27 EVV), ‘I will also appoint him my firstborn (πρωτότοκον), the most exalted of the kings of the earth,’ indicates that it can denote supremacy in rank as well as priority in time. But whether the πρωτό- element in the word denotes time, rank, or both, the significance of the -τοκος element as indicating birth or origin (from τίκτω, give birth to) has been virtually lost except in ref. to lit. birth.” In Col 1:15 the emphasis is on the priority of Jesus’ rank as over and above creation (cf. 1:16 and the “for” clause referring to Jesus as Creator).

[1:15]  ³ tn The genitive construction πάσης κτίσεως (pash" ktisew") is a genitive of subordination and is therefore translated as “over all creation.” See ExSyn 103-4.

[1:16]  ¹ tn BDAG 579 s.v. κυριότης 3 suggests “bearers of the ruling powers, dominions” here.