Matthew 20:6-7

20:6 And about five o’clock that afternoon ¹  he went out and found others standing around, and said to them, ‘Why are you standing here all day without work?’ 20:7 They said to him, ‘Because no one hired us.’ He said to them, ‘You go and work in the vineyard too.’

Matthew 11:16-17

11:16 “To ²  what should I compare this generation? They are like children sitting in the marketplaces who call out to one another, ³ 

11:17 ‘We played the flute for you, yet you did not dance; ⁴ 

we wailed in mourning, ⁵  yet you did not weep.’

Proverbs 19:15

19:15 Laziness brings on ⁶  a deep sleep, ⁷ 

and the idle person ⁸  will go hungry. ⁹ 

Ezekiel 16:49

16:49 “‘See here – this was the iniquity ¹⁰  of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters had majesty, abundance of food, and enjoyed carefree ease, but they did not help ¹¹  the poor and needy.

Acts 17:17-21

17:17 So he was addressing ¹²  the Jews and the God-fearing Gentiles ¹³  in the synagogue, ¹⁴  and in the marketplace every day ¹⁵  those who happened to be there. 17:18 Also some of the Epicurean ¹⁶  and Stoic ¹⁷  philosophers were conversing ¹⁸  with him, and some were asking, ¹⁹  “What does this foolish babbler ²⁰  want to say?” Others said, “He seems to be a proclaimer of foreign gods.” ²¹  (They said this because he was proclaiming the good news about Jesus and the resurrection.) ²²  17:19 So they took Paul and ²³  brought him to the Areopagus, ²⁴  saying, “May we know what this new teaching is that you are proclaiming? 17:20 For you are bringing some surprising things ²⁵  to our ears, so we want to know what they ²⁶  mean.” 17:21 (All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there used to spend their time ²⁷  in nothing else than telling ²⁸  or listening to something new.) ²⁹ 

Acts 17:1

Paul and Silas at Thessalonica

17:1 After they traveled through ³⁰  Amphipolis ³¹  and Apollonia, ³²  they came to Thessalonica, ³³  where there was a Jewish synagogue. ³⁴ 

Acts 5:13

5:13 None of the rest dared to join them, ³⁵  but the people held them in high honor. ³⁶ 

Hebrews 6:12

6:12 so that you may not be sluggish, ³⁷  but imitators of those who through faith and perseverance inherit the promises.

[20:6]  ¹ tn Grk “about the eleventh hour.”

[11:16]  ² tn Here δέ (de) has not been translated.

[11:16]  ³ tn Grk “who call out to one another, saying.” The participle λέγουσιν (legousin) is redundant in contemporary English and has not been translated.

[11:17]  ⁴ sn ‘We played the flute for you, yet you did not dance…’ The children of this generation were making the complaint (see vv. 18-19) that others were not playing the game according to the way they played the music. John and Jesus did not follow “their tune.” Jesus’ complaint was that this generation wanted things their way, not God’s.

[11:17]  ⁵ tn The verb ἐθρηνήσαμεν (eqrhnhsamen) refers to the loud wailing and lamenting used to mourn the dead in public in 1st century Jewish culture.

[19:15]  ⁶ tn Heb “causes to fall” or “casts”; NAB “plunges…into.”

[19:15]  ⁷ tn Or “complete inactivity”; the word תַּרְדֵּמָה (tardemah) can refer to a physical “deep sleep” (e.g., Gen 2:21; Jonah 1:5, 6); but it can also be used figuratively for complete inactivity, as other words for “sleep” can. Here it refers to lethargy or debility and morbidness.

[19:15]  ⁸ tn The expression וְנֶפֶשׁ רְמִיָּה (vÿnefesh rÿmiyyah) can be translated “the soul of deceit” or “the soul of slackness.” There are two identical feminine nouns, one from the verb “beguile,” and the other from a cognate Arabic root “grow loose.” The second is more likely here in view of the parallelism (cf. NIV “a shiftless man”; NAB “the sluggard”). One who is slack, that is, idle, will go hungry.

[19:15]  ⁹ sn The two lines are related in a metonymical sense: “deep sleep” is the cause of going hungry, and “going hungry” is the effect of deep sleep.

[16:49]  ¹⁰ tn Or “guilt.”

[16:49]  ¹¹ tn Heb “strengthen the hand of.”

[17:17]  ¹² tn Although the word διελέξατο (dielexato; from διαλέγομαι, dialegomai) is frequently translated “reasoned,” “disputed,” or “argued,” this sense comes from its classical meaning where it was used of philosophical disputation, including the Socratic method of questions and answers. However, there does not seem to be contextual evidence for this kind of debate in Acts 17:17. As G. Schrenk (TDNT 2:94-95) points out, “What is at issue is the address which any qualified member of a synagogue might give.” Other examples of this may be found in the NT in Matt 4:23 and Mark 1:21.

[17:17]  ¹³ tn Or “and the devout,” but this is practically a technical term for the category called God-fearers, Gentiles who worshiped the God of Israel and in many cases kept the Mosaic law, but did not take the final step of circumcision necessary to become a proselyte to Judaism. See further K. G. Kuhn, TDNT 6:732-34, 743-44, and the note on the phrase “God-fearing Greeks” in 17:4.

[17:17]  ¹⁴ sn See the note on synagogue in 6:9.

[17:17]  ¹⁵ tn BDAG 437 s.v. ἡμέρα 2.c has “every day” for this phrase in this verse.

[17:18]  ¹⁶ sn An Epicurean was a follower of the philosophy of Epicurus, who founded a school in Athens about 300 b.c. Although the Epicureans saw the aim of life as pleasure, they were not strictly hedonists, because they defined pleasure as the absence of pain. Along with this, they desired the avoidance of trouble and freedom from annoyances. They saw organized religion as evil, especially the belief that the gods punished evildoers in an afterlife. In keeping with this, they were unable to accept Paul’s teaching about the resurrection.

[17:18]  ¹⁷ sn A Stoic was a follower of the philosophy founded by Zeno (342-270 b.c.), a Phoenician who came to Athens and modified the philosophical system of the Cynics he found there. The Stoics rejected the Epicurean ideal of pleasure, stressing virtue instead. The Stoics emphasized responsibility for voluntary actions and believed risks were worth taking, but thought the actual attainment of virtue was difficult. They also believed in providence.

[17:18]  ¹⁸ tn BDAG 956 s.v. συμβάλλω 1 has “converse, confer” here.

[17:18]  ¹⁹ tn Grk “saying.”

[17:18]  ²⁰ tn Or “ignorant show-off.” The traditional English translation of σπερμολόγος (spermologo") is given in L&N 33.381 as “foolish babbler.” However, an alternate view is presented in L&N 27.19, “(a figurative extension of meaning of a term based on the practice of birds in picking up seeds) one who acquires bits and pieces of relatively extraneous information and proceeds to pass them off with pretense and show – ‘ignorant show-off, charlatan.’” A similar view is given in BDAG 937 s.v. σπερμολόγος: “in pejorative imagery of persons whose communication lacks sophistication and seems to pick up scraps of information here and there scrapmonger, scavenger…Engl. synonyms include ‘gossip’, ‘babbler’, chatterer’; but these terms miss the imagery of unsystematic gathering.”

[17:18]  ²¹ tn The meaning of this phrase is not clear. Literally it reads “strange deities” (see BDAG 210 s.v. δαιμόνιον 1). The note of not being customary is important. In the ancient world what was new was suspicious. The plural δαιμονίων (daimoniwn, “deities”) shows the audience grappling with Paul’s teaching that God was working through Jesus.

[17:18]  ²² sn This is a parenthetical note by the author.

[17:19]  ²³ tn Grk “him”; the referent (Paul) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[17:19]  ²⁴ tn Or “to the council of the Areopagus.” See also the term in v. 22.

[17:20]  ²⁵ tn BDAG 684 s.v. ξενίζω 2 translates the substantival participle ξενίζοντα (xenizonta) as “astonishing things Ac 17:20.”

[17:20]  ²⁶ tn Grk “these things”; but since the referent (“surprising things”) is so close, the repetition of “these things” sounds redundant in English, so the pronoun “they” was substituted in the translation.

[17:21]  ²⁷ tn The imperfect verb ηὐκαίρουν (hukairoun) has been translated as a customary or habitual imperfect.

[17:21]  ²⁸ tn BDAG 406-7 s.v. εὐκαιρέω has “used to spend their time in nothing else than telling Ac 17:21.”

[17:21]  ²⁹ sn This is a parenthetical note by the author. The reference to newness may be pejorative.

[17:1]  ³⁰ tn BDAG 250 s.v. διοδεύω 1 has “go, travel through” for this verse.

[17:1]  ³¹ sn Amphipolis. The capital city of the southeastern district of Macedonia (BDAG 55 s.v. ᾿Αμφίπολις). It was a military post. From Philippi this was about 33 mi (53 km).

[17:1]  ³² sn Apollonia was a city in Macedonia about 27 mi (43 km) west southwest of Amphipolis.

[17:1]  ³³ sn Thessalonica (modern Salonica) was a city in Macedonia about 33 mi (53 km) west of Apollonia. It was the capital of Macedonia. The road they traveled over was called the Via Egnatia. It is likely they rode horses, given their condition in Philippi. The implication of v. 1 is that the two previously mentioned cities lacked a synagogue.

[17:1]  ³⁴ sn See the note on synagogue in 6:9.

[5:13]  ³⁵ tn Or “to associate with them.” The group was beginning to have a controversial separate identity. People were cautious about joining them. The next verse suggests that the phrase “none of the rest” in this verse is rhetorical hyperbole.

[5:13]  ³⁶ tn Or “the people thought very highly of them.”

[6:12]  ³⁷ tn Or “dull.”