Matthew 5:44-45

5:44 But I say to you, love your enemy and ¹  pray for those who persecute you, 5:45 so that you may be like ²  your Father in heaven, since he causes the sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.

Luke 6:35-36

6:35 But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing back. ³  Then ⁴  your reward will be great, and you will be sons ⁵  of the Most High, ⁶  because he is kind to ungrateful and evil people. ⁷  6:36 Be merciful, ⁸  just as your Father is merciful.

Ephesians 4:32--5:2

4:32 Instead, ⁹  be kind to one another, compassionate, forgiving one another, just as God in Christ also forgave you. ¹⁰ 

Live in Love

5:1 Therefore, be ¹¹  imitators of God as dearly loved children 5:2 and live ¹²  in love, just as Christ also loved us ¹³  and gave himself for us, a sacrificial and fragrant offering ¹⁴  to God.

Colossians 3:13

3:13 bearing with one another and forgiving ¹⁵  one another, if someone happens to have ¹⁶  a complaint against anyone else. Just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also forgive others. ¹⁷ 

[5:44]  ¹ tc Most mss ([D] L [W] Θ Ë¹³ 33 Ï lat) read “bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who mistreat you,” before “those who persecute you.” But this is surely a motivated reading, importing the longer form of this aphorism from Luke 6:27-28. The shorter text is found in א B ˹ pc sa, as well as several fathers and versional witnesses.

[5:45]  ² tn Grk “be sons of your Father in heaven.” Here, however, the focus is not on attaining a relationship (becoming a child of God) but rather on being the kind of person who shares the characteristics of God himself (a frequent meaning of the Semitic idiom “son of”). See L&N 58.26.

[6:35]  ³ tn Or “in return.”

[6:35]  ⁴ tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “then” to indicate the outcome or result. Because of the length and complexity of the Greek sentence, a new sentence was started in the translation at this point.

[6:35]  ⁵ sn The character of these actions reflects the grace and kindness of God, bearing witness to a “line of descent” or relationship of the individual to God (sons of the Most High). There is to be a unique kind of ethic at work with disciples. Jesus refers specifically to sons here because in the ancient world sons had special privileges which were rarely accorded to daughters. However, Jesus is most likely addressing both men and women in this context, so women too would receive these same privileges.

[6:35]  ⁶ sn That is, “sons of God.”

[6:35]  ⁷ tn Or “to the ungrateful and immoral.” The word “people” is not in the Greek text, but is implied.

[6:36]  ⁸ sn Merciful is a characteristic of God often noted in the OT: Exod 34:6; Deut 4:31; Joel 2:31; Jonah 4:2; 2 Sam 24:14. This remark also echoes the more common OT statements like Lev 19:2 or Deut 18:13: “you must be holy as I am holy.”

[4:32]  ⁹ tc ‡ Although most witnesses have either δέ (de; Ì⁴⁹ א A D² Ψ 33 1739^mg Ï lat) or οὖν (oun; D* F G 1175) here, a few important mss lack a conjunction (Ì⁴⁶ B 0278 6 1739* 1881). If either conjunction were originally in the text, it is difficult to explain how the asyndetic construction could have arisen (although the dropping of δέ could have occurred via homoioteleuton). Further, although Hellenistic Greek rarely joined sentences without a conjunction, such does occur in the corpus Paulinum on occasion, especially to underscore a somber point. “Instead” has been supplied in the translation because of stylistic requirements, not textual basis. NA²⁷ places δέ in brackets, indicating some doubt as to its authenticity.

[4:32]  ¹⁰ tn Or “forgiving.”

[5:1]  ¹¹ tn Or “become.”

[5:2]  ¹² 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]  ¹³ 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]  ¹⁴ 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.”

[3:13]  ¹⁵ tn For the translation of χαριζόμενοι (carizomenoi) as “forgiving,” see BDAG 1078 s.v. χαρίζομαι 3. The two participles “bearing” (ἀνεχόμενοι, anecomenoi) and “forgiving” (χαριζόμενοι) express the means by which the action of the finite verb “clothe yourselves” is to be carried out.

[3:13]  ¹⁶ tn Grk “if someone has”; the term “happens,” though not in the Greek text, is inserted to bring out the force of the third class condition.

[3:13]  ¹⁷ tn The expression “forgive others” is not in the Greek text, but is implied. It is included in the translation to make the sentence complete and more comprehensible to the English reader.