Proverbs 3:7

3:7 Do not be wise in your own estimation; ¹ 

fear the Lord and turn away from evil. ² 

Isaiah 55:8-9

55:8 “Indeed, ³  my plans ⁴  are not like ⁵  your plans,

and my deeds ⁶  are not like ⁷  your deeds,

55:9 for just as the sky ⁸  is higher than the earth,

so my deeds ⁹  are superior to ¹⁰  your deeds

and my plans ¹¹  superior to your plans.

John 4:48

4:48 So Jesus said to him, “Unless you people ¹²  see signs and wonders you will never believe!” ¹³ 

John 4:1

Departure From Judea

4:1 Now when Jesus ¹⁴  knew that the Pharisees ¹⁵  had heard that he ¹⁶  was winning ¹⁷  and baptizing more disciples than John

Colossians 1:21-25

Paul’s Goal in Ministry

1:21 And you were at one time strangers and enemies in your ¹⁸  minds ¹⁹  as expressed through ²⁰  your evil deeds, 1:22 but now he has reconciled you ²¹  by his physical body through death to present you holy, without blemish, and blameless before him – 1:23 if indeed you remain in the faith, established and firm, ²²  without shifting ²³  from the hope of the gospel that you heard. This gospel has also been preached in all creation under heaven, and I, Paul, have become its servant.

1:24 Now I rejoice in my sufferings for you, and I fill up in my physical body – for the sake of his body, the church – what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ. 1:25 I became a servant of the church according to the stewardship ²⁴  from God – given to me for you – in order to complete ²⁵  the word of God,

Colossians 2:14-16

2:14 He has destroyed ²⁶  what was against us, a certificate of indebtedness ²⁷  expressed in decrees opposed to us. He has taken it away by nailing it to the cross. 2:15 Disarming ²⁸  the rulers and authorities, he has made a public disgrace of them, triumphing over them by the cross. ²⁹ 

2:16 Therefore do not let anyone judge you with respect to food or drink, or in the matter of a feast, new moon, or Sabbath days –

Colossians 3:18-20

Exhortation to Households

3:18 Wives, submit to your ³⁰  husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. 3:19 Husbands, love your wives and do not be embittered against them. 3:20 Children, obey your parents in everything, for this is pleasing in the Lord.

[3:7]  ¹ tn Heb “in your own eyes” (so NAB, NIV, NRSV); NLT “Don’t be impressed with your own wisdom.”

[3:7]  ² sn The second colon clarifies the first. If one fears the Lord and turns away from evil, then he is depending on the Lord and not wise in his own eyes. There is a higher source of wisdom than human insight.

[55:8]  ³ tn Or “For” (KJV, NAB, NASB, NIV).

[55:8]  ⁴ tn Or “thoughts” (so many English versions).

[55:8]  ⁵ tn Heb “are not.” “Like” is interpretive, but v. 9 indicates that a comparison is in view.

[55:8]  ⁶ tn Heb “ways” (so many English versions).

[55:8]  ⁷ tn Heb “are not.” “Like” is interpretive, but v. 9 indicates that a comparison is in view.

[55:9]  ⁸ tn Or “the heavens.” The Hebrew term שָׁמַיִם (shamayim) may be translated “heavens” or “sky” depending on the context.

[55:9]  ⁹ tn Heb “ways” (so many English versions).

[55:9]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “are higher than.”

[55:9]  ¹¹ tn Or “thoughts” (so many English versions).

[4:48]  ¹² tn The word “people” is not in the Greek text, but is supplied to indicate that the verb is second person plural (referring to more than the royal official alone).

[4:48]  ¹³ tn Or “you never believe.” The verb πιστεύσητε (pisteushte) is aorist subjunctive and may have either nuance.

[4:1]  ¹⁴ tc Several early and important witnesses, along with the majority of later ones (Ì^66c,75 A B C L W^s Ψ 083 ˹³ 33 Ï sa), have κύριος (kurio", “Lord”) here instead of ᾿Ιησοῦς (Ihsou", “Jesus”). As significant as this external support is, the internal evidence seems to be on the side of ᾿Ιησοῦς. “Jesus” is mentioned two more times in the first two verses of chapter four in a way that is stylistically awkward (so much so that the translation has substituted the pronoun for the first one; see tn note below). This seems to be sufficient reason to motivate scribes to change the wording to κύριος. Further, the reading ᾿Ιησοῦς is not without decent support, though admittedly not as strong as that for κύριος (Ì^66* א D Θ 086 ˹ 565 1241 al lat bo). On the other hand, this Gospel speaks of Jesus as Lord in the evangelist’s narrative descriptions elsewhere only in 11:2; 20:18, 20; 21:12; and probably 6:23, preferring ᾿Ιησοῦς most of the time. This fact could be used to argue that scribes, acquainted with John’s style, changed κύριος to ᾿Ιησοῦς. But the immediate context generally is weighed more heavily than an author’s style. It is possible that neither word was in the original text and scribes supplied what they thought most appropriate (see TCGNT 176). But without ms evidence to this effect coupled with the harder reading ᾿Ιησοῦς, this conjecture must remain doubtful. All in all, it is best to regard ᾿Ιησοῦς as the original reading here.

[4:1]  ¹⁵ sn See the note on Pharisees in 1:24.

[4:1]  ¹⁶ tn Grk “Jesus”; the repetition of the proper name is somewhat redundant in English (see the beginning of the verse) and so the pronoun (“he”) has been substituted here.

[4:1]  ¹⁷ tn Grk “was making.”

[1:21]  ¹⁸ tn The article τῇ (th) has been translated as a possessive pronoun (ExSyn 215).

[1:21]  ¹⁹ 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]  ²⁰ 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]  ²¹ 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.

[1:23]  ²² tn BDAG 276 s.v. ἑδραῖος suggests “firm, steadfast.”

[1:23]  ²³ tn BDAG 639 s.v. μετακινέω suggests “without shifting from the hope” here.

[1:25]  ²⁴ tn BDAG 697 s.v. οἰκονομία 1.b renders the term here as “divine office.”

[1:25]  ²⁵ tn See BDAG 828 s.v. πληρόω 3. The idea here seems to be that the apostle wants to “complete the word of God” in that he wants to preach it to every person in the known world (cf. Rom 15:19). See P. T. O’Brien, Colossians, Philemon (WBC), 82.

[2:14]  ²⁶ 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]  ²⁷ tn On the translation of χειρόγραφον (ceirografon), see BDAG 1083 s.v. which refers to it as “a certificate of indebtedness.”

[2:15]  ²⁸ tn See BDAG 100 s.v. ἀπεκδύομαι 2.

[2:15]  ²⁹ tn The antecedent of the Greek pronoun αὐτῷ (autw) could either be “Christ” or the “cross.” There are several reasons for choosing “the cross” as the antecedent for αὐτῷ in verse 15: (1) The nearest antecedent is τῷ σταυρῷ (tw staurw) in v. 14; (2) the idea of ἐδειγμάτισεν ἐν παρρησία (edeigmatisen en parrhsia, “made a public disgrace”) seems to be more in keeping with the idea of the cross; (3) a reference to Christ seems to miss the irony involved in the idea of triumph – the whole point is that where one would expect defeat, there came the victory; (4) if Christ is the subject of the participles in v. 15 then almost certainly the cross is the referent for αὐτῷ. Thus the best solution is to see αὐτῷ as a reference to the cross and the preposition ἐν (en) indicating “means” (i.e., by means of the cross) or possibly (though less likely) location (on the cross).

[3:18]  ³⁰ tn The article τοῖς (tois) with ἀνδράσιν (andrasin, “husbands”) has been translated as a possessive pronoun (“your”); see ExSyn 215.