Matthew 15:24

15:24 So ¹  he answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”

Acts 3:25-26

3:25 You are the sons of the prophets and of the covenant that God made with your ancestors, ²  saying to Abraham, ‘And in your descendants ³  all the nations ⁴  of the earth will be blessed.’ ⁵  3:26 God raised up ⁶  his servant and sent him first to you, to bless you by turning ⁷  each one of you from your iniquities.” ⁸ 

Acts 13:26

13:26 Brothers, ⁹  descendants ¹⁰  of Abraham’s family, ¹¹  and those Gentiles among you who fear God, ¹²  the message ¹³  of this salvation has been sent to us.

Acts 13:26

13:26 Brothers, ¹⁴  descendants ¹⁵  of Abraham’s family, ¹⁶  and those Gentiles among you who fear God, ¹⁷  the message ¹⁸  of this salvation has been sent to us.

Acts 13:46

13:46 Both Paul and Barnabas replied courageously, ¹⁹  “It was necessary to speak the word of God ²⁰  to you first. Since you reject it and do not consider yourselves worthy ²¹  of eternal life, we ²²  are turning to the Gentiles. ²³ 

Romans 9:1

Israel’s Rejection Considered

9:1 ²⁴ I am telling the truth in Christ (I am not lying!), for my conscience assures me ²⁵  in the Holy Spirit –

Romans 9:5

9:5 To them belong the patriarchs, ²⁶  and from them, ²⁷  by human descent, ²⁸  came the Christ, ²⁹  who is God over all, blessed forever! ³⁰  Amen.

Romans 15:8

15:8 For I tell you that Christ has become a servant of the circumcised ³¹  on behalf of God’s truth to confirm the promises made to the fathers, ³² 

Galatians 4:4

4:4 But when the appropriate time ³³  had come, God sent out his Son, born of a woman, born under the law,

[15:24]  ¹ tn Grk “And answering, he said.” The construction in Greek is somewhat redundant and has been simplified in the translation. Here δέ (de) has been translated as “so” to indicate the implied result of the disciples’ request.

[3:25]  ² tn Or “forefathers”; Grk “fathers.”

[3:25]  ³ tn Or “in your offspring”; Grk “in your seed.”

[3:25]  ⁴ tn Or “families.” The Greek word πατριά (patria) can indicate persons of succeeding generations who are related by birth (“lineage,” “family”) but it can also indicate a relatively large unit of people who make up a sociopolitical group and who share a presumed biological descent. In many contexts πατριά is very similar to ἔθνος (eqnos) and λαός (laos). In light of the context of the OT quotation, it is better to translate πατριά as “nations” here.

[3:25]  ⁵ sn A quotation from Gen 22:18.

[3:26]  ⁶ tn Grk “God raising up his servant, sent him.” The participle ἀναστήσας (anasthsa") has been translated as a finite verb due to requirements of contemporary English style. Some translations (e.g., NIV, NRSV) render this participle as temporal (“when God raised up his servant”).

[3:26]  ⁷ sn The picture of turning is again seen as the appropriate response to the message. See v. 19 above. In v. 19 it was “turning to,” here it is “turning away from.” The direction of the two metaphors is important.

[3:26]  ⁸ tn For the translation of plural πονηρία (ponhria) as “iniquities,” see G. Harder, TDNT 6:565. The plural is important, since for Luke turning to Jesus means turning away from sins, not just the sin of rejecting Jesus.

[13:26]  ⁹ tn Grk “Men brothers,” but this is both awkward and unnecessary in English.

[13:26]  ¹⁰ tn Grk “sons”

[13:26]  ¹¹ tn Or “race.”

[13:26]  ¹² tn Grk “and those among you who fear God,” 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. Note how Paul includes God-fearing Gentiles as recipients of this promise.

[13:26]  ¹³ tn Grk “word.”

[13:26]  ¹⁴ tn Grk “Men brothers,” but this is both awkward and unnecessary in English.

[13:26]  ¹⁵ tn Grk “sons”

[13:26]  ¹⁶ tn Or “race.”

[13:26]  ¹⁷ tn Grk “and those among you who fear God,” 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. Note how Paul includes God-fearing Gentiles as recipients of this promise.

[13:26]  ¹⁸ tn Grk “word.”

[13:46]  ¹⁹ tn Grk “Both Paul and Barnabas spoke out courageously and said.” The redundancy is removed in the translation and the verb “replied” is used in keeping with the logical sequence of events. The theme of boldness reappears: Acts 4:24-30; 9:27-28.

[13:46]  ²⁰ tn Grk “It was necessary that the word of God be spoken.” For smoothness and simplicity of English style, the passive construction has been converted to active voice in the translation.

[13:46]  ²¹ tn Or “and consider yourselves unworthy.”

[13:46]  ²² tn Grk “behold, we.” In this context ἰδού (idou) is not easily translated into English.

[13:46]  ²³ sn This turning to the Gentiles would be a shocking rebuke to 1st century Jews who thought they alone were the recipients of the promise.

[9:1]  ²⁴ sn Rom 9:1–11:36. These three chapters are among the most difficult and disputed in Paul’s Letter to the Romans. One area of difficulty is the relationship between Israel and the church, especially concerning the nature and extent of Israel’s election. Many different models have been constructed to express this relationship. For a representative survey, see M. Barth, The People of God (JSNTSup), 22-27. The literary genre of these three chapters has been frequently identified as a diatribe, a philosophical discussion or conversation evolved by the Cynic and Stoic schools of philosophy as a means of popularizing their ideas (E. Käsemann, Romans, 261 and 267). But other recent scholars have challenged the idea that Rom 9–11 is characterized by diatribe. Scholars like R. Scroggs and E. E. Ellis have instead identified the material in question as midrash. For a summary and discussion of the rabbinic connections, see W. R. Stegner, “Romans 9.6-29 – A Midrash,” JSNT 22 (1984): 37-52.

[9:1]  ²⁵ tn Or “my conscience bears witness to me.”

[9:5]  ²⁶ tn Grk “of whom are the fathers.” Because of the length and complexity of the Greek sentence, a new sentence was started here in the translation.

[9:5]  ²⁷ tn Grk “from whom.” Here the relative pronoun has been replaced by a personal pronoun.

[9:5]  ²⁸ tn Grk “according to the flesh.”

[9:5]  ²⁹ tn Or “Messiah.” (Both Greek “Christ” and Hebrew and Aramaic “Messiah” mean “one who has been anointed.”)

[9:5]  ³⁰ tn Or “the Christ, who is over all, God blessed forever,” or “the Messiah. God who is over all be blessed forever!” or “the Messiah who is over all. God be blessed forever!” The translational difficulty here is not text-critical in nature, but is a problem of punctuation. Since the genre of these opening verses of Romans 9 is a lament, it is probably best to take this as an affirmation of Christ’s deity (as the text renders it). Although the other renderings are possible, to see a note of praise to God at the end of this section seems strangely out of place. But for Paul to bring his lament to a crescendo (that is to say, his kinsmen had rejected God come in the flesh), thereby deepening his anguish, is wholly appropriate. This is also supported grammatically and stylistically: The phrase ὁ ὢν (Jo wn, “the one who is”) is most naturally taken as a phrase which modifies something in the preceding context, and Paul’s doxologies are always closely tied to the preceding context. For a detailed examination of this verse, see B. M. Metzger, “The Punctuation of Rom. 9:5,” Christ and the Spirit in the New Testament, 95-112; and M. J. Harris, Jesus as God, 144-72.

[15:8]  ³¹ tn Grk “of the circumcision”; that is, the Jews.

[15:8]  ³² tn Or “to the patriarchs.”

[4:4]  ³³ tn Grk “the fullness of time” (an idiom for the totality of a period of time, with the implication of proper completion; see L&N 67.69).