Psalms 140:11

140:11 A slanderer ¹  will not endure on ²  the earth;

calamity will hunt down a violent man and strike him down. ³ 

Proverbs 6:19

6:19 a false witness who pours out lies, ⁴ 

and a person who spreads discord ⁵  among family members. ⁶ 

Acts 23:5

23:5 Paul replied, ⁷  “I did not realize, ⁸  brothers, that he was the high priest, for it is written, ‘You must not speak evil about a ruler of your people.’” ⁹ 

Acts 23:1

23:1 Paul looked directly ¹⁰  at the council ¹¹  and said, “Brothers, I have lived my life with a clear conscience ¹²  before God to this day.”

Colossians 1:10

1:10 so that you may live ¹³  worthily of the Lord and please him in all respects ¹⁴  – bearing fruit in every good deed, growing in the knowledge of God,

Colossians 1:2

1:2 to the saints, the faithful ¹⁵  brothers and sisters ¹⁶  in Christ, at Colossae. Grace and peace to you ¹⁷  from God our Father! ¹⁸ 

Colossians 1:20

1:20 and through him to reconcile all things to himself by making peace through the blood of his cross – through him, ¹⁹  whether things on earth or things in heaven.

Ephesians 4:31

4:31 You must put away every kind of bitterness, anger, wrath, quarreling, and evil, slanderous talk.

Ephesians 4:1

Live in Unity

4:1 I, therefore, the prisoner for the Lord, ²⁰  urge you to live ²¹  worthily of the calling with which you have been called, ²² 

Ephesians 3:11

3:11 This was according to ²³  the eternal purpose that he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord,

James 4:11

4:11 Do not speak against one another, brothers and sisters. ²⁴  He who speaks against a fellow believer ²⁵  or judges a fellow believer speaks against the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but its judge. ²⁶ 

James 4:1

Passions and Pride

4:1 Where do the conflicts and where ²⁷  do the quarrels among you come from? Is it not from this, ²⁸  from your passions that battle inside you? ²⁹ 

James 2:1

Prejudice and the Law of Love

2:1 My brothers and sisters, ³⁰  do not show prejudice ³¹  if you possess faith ³²  in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ. ³³ 

James 3:10

3:10 From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. These things should not be so, my brothers and sisters. ³⁴ 

James 4:4

4:4 Adulterers, do you not know that friendship with the world means hostility toward God? ³⁵  So whoever decides to be the world’s friend makes himself God’s enemy.

James 4:2

4:2 You desire and you do not have; you murder and envy and you cannot obtain; you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask;

James 2:10

2:10 For the one who obeys the whole law but fails ³⁶  in one point has become guilty of all of it. ³⁷ 

Jude 1:8

1:8 Yet these men, ³⁸  as a result of their dreams, ³⁹  defile the flesh, reject authority, ⁴⁰  and insult ⁴¹  the glorious ones. ⁴² 

Jude 1:10

1:10 But these men do not understand the things they slander, and they are being destroyed by the very things that, like irrational animals, they instinctively comprehend. ⁴³ 

[140:11]  ¹ tn Heb “a man of a tongue.”

[140:11]  ² tn Heb “be established in.”

[140:11]  ³ tn Heb “for blows.” The Hebrew noun מַדְחֵפֹה (madkhefoh, “blow”) occurs only here in the OT.

[6:19]  ⁴ sn The Lord hates perjury and a lying witness (e.g., Ps 40:4; Amos 2:4; Mic 1:4). This is a direct violation of the law (Exod 20).

[6:19]  ⁵ sn Dissension is attributed in Proverbs to contentious people (21:9; 26:21; 25:24) who have a short fuse (15:8).

[6:19]  ⁶ tn Heb “brothers,” although not limited to male siblings only. Cf. NRSV, CEV “in a family”; TEV “among friends.”

[23:5]  ⁷ tn Grk “said.”

[23:5]  ⁸ tn Or “know.”

[23:5]  ⁹ sn A quotation from Exod 22:28. This text defines a form of blasphemy. Paul, aware of the fact that he came close to crossing the line, backed off out of respect for the law.

[23:1]  ¹⁰ tn Grk “Paul, looking directly at the council, said.” The participle ἀτενίσας (atenisa") has been translated as a finite verb due to requirements of contemporary English style.

[23:1]  ¹¹ tn Grk “the Sanhedrin” (the Sanhedrin was the highest legal, legislative, and judicial body among the Jews).

[23:1]  ¹² tn BDAG 846 s.v. πολιτεύομαι 3 has “W. a double dat. συνειδήσει ἀγαθῇ πεπολίτευμαι τῷ θεῷ I have lived my life with a clear conscience before God Ac 23:1.”

[1:10]  ¹³ tn The infinitive περιπατῆσαι (peripathsai, “to walk, to live, to live one’s life”) is best taken as an infinitive of purpose related to “praying” (προσευχόμενοι, proseucomenoi) and “asking” (αἰτούμενοι, aitoumenoi) in v. 9 and is thus translated as “that you may live.”

[1:10]  ¹⁴ tn BDAG 129 s.v. ἀρεσκεία states that ἀρεσκείαν (areskeian) refers to a “desire to please εἰς πᾶσαν ἀ. to please (the Lord) in all respects Col 1:10.”

[1:2]  ¹⁵ tn Grk “and faithful.” The construction in Greek (as well as Paul’s style) suggests that the saints are identical to the faithful; hence, the καί (kai) is best left untranslated (cf. Eph 1:1). See ExSyn 281-82.

[1:2]  ¹⁶ tn Grk “brothers,” but the Greek word may be used for “brothers and sisters” or “fellow Christians” as here (cf. BDAG 18 s.v. ἀδελφός 1, where considerable nonbiblical evidence for the plural ἀδελφοί [adelfoi] meaning “brothers and sisters” is cited).

[1:2]  ¹⁷ tn Or “Grace to you and peace.”

[1:2]  ¹⁸ tc Most witnesses, including some important ones (א A C F G I [P] 075 Ï it bo), read “and the Lord Jesus Christ” at the end of this verse, no doubt to conform the wording to the typical Pauline salutation. However, excellent and early witnesses (B D K L Ψ 33 81 1175 1505 1739 1881 al sa) lack this phrase. Since the omission is inexplicable as arising from the longer reading (otherwise, these mss would surely have deleted the phrase in the rest of the corpus Paulinum), it is surely authentic.

[1:20]  ¹⁹ tc The presence or absence of the second occurrence of the phrase δι᾿ αὐτοῦ (di’ autou, “through him”) is a difficult textual problem to solve. External evidence is fairly evenly divided. Many ancient and excellent witnesses lack the phrase (B D* F G I 0278 81 1175 1739 1881 2464 al latt sa), but equally important witnesses have it (Ì⁴⁶ א A C D¹ Ψ 048^vid 33 Ï). Both readings have strong Alexandrian support, which makes the problem difficult to decide on external evidence alone. Internal evidence points to the inclusion of the phrase as original. The word immediately preceding the phrase is the masculine pronoun αὐτοῦ (autou); thus the possibility of omission through homoioteleuton in various witnesses is likely. Scribes might have deleted the phrase because of perceived redundancy or awkwardness in the sense: The shorter reading is smoother and more elegant, so scribes would be prone to correct the text in that direction. As far as style is concerned, repetition of key words and phrases for emphasis is not foreign to the corpus Paulinum (see, e.g., Rom 8:23, Eph 1:13, 2 Cor 12:7). In short, it is easier to account for the shorter reading arising from the longer reading than vice versa, so the longer reading is more likely original.

[4:1]  ²⁰ tn Grk “prisoner in the Lord.”

[4:1]  ²¹ tn Grk “walk.” The verb “walk” in the NT letters refers to the conduct of one’s life, not to physical walking.

[4:1]  ²² sn With which you have been called. The calling refers to the Holy Spirit’s prompting that caused them to believe. The author is thus urging his readers to live a life that conforms to their saved status before God.

[3:11]  ²³ tn Grk “according to.” The verse is a prepositional phrase subordinate to v. 10.

[4:11]  ²⁴ tn Grk “brothers.” See note on the phrase “brothers and sisters” in 1:2.

[4:11]  ²⁵ tn See note on the word “believer” in 1:9.

[4:11]  ²⁶ tn Grk “a judge.”

[4:1]  ²⁷ tn The word “where” is repeated in Greek for emphasis.

[4:1]  ²⁸ tn Grk “from here.”

[4:1]  ²⁹ tn Grk “in your members [i.e., parts of the body].”

[2:1]  ³⁰ tn Grk “brothers.” See note on the phrase “brothers and sisters” in 1:2.

[2:1]  ³¹ tn Or “partiality.”

[2:1]  ³² tn Grk “do not have faith with personal prejudice,” with emphasis on the last phrase.

[2:1]  ³³ tn Grk “our Lord Jesus Christ of glory.” Here δόξης (doxhs) has been translated as an attributive genitive.

[3:10]  ³⁴ tn Grk “brothers.” See note on the phrase “brothers and sisters” in 1:2.

[4:4]  ³⁵ tn Grk “is hostility toward God.”

[2:10]  ³⁶ tn Or “stumbles.”

[2:10]  ³⁷ tn Grk “guilty of all.”

[1:8]  ³⁸ tn The reference is now to the false teachers.

[1:8]  ³⁹ tn Grk “dreaming.” The participle ἐνυπνιαζόμενοι (enupniazomenoi, “dreaming”) is adverbial to the pronoun οὗτοι (|outoi, “these”), though the particular relationship is not clear. It could mean, “while dreaming,” “by dreaming,” or “because of dreaming.” This translation has adopted the last option as Jude’s meaning, partially for syntactical reasons (the causal participle usually precedes the main verb) and partially for contextual reasons (these false teachers must derive their authority from some source, and the dreams provide the most obvious base). The participle ἐνυπνιαζόμενοι was sometimes used of apocalyptic visions, both of true and false prophets. This seems to be the meaning here.

[1:8]  ⁴⁰ tn Most likely, the authority of the Lord is in view. This verse, then, echoes the indictment of v. 4: “they deny our Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.”

[1:8]  ⁴¹ tn The construction with the three verbs (“defile, “reject,” and “insult”) involves the particles μέν, δέ, δέ (men, de, de). A more literal (and pedantic) translation would be: “on the one hand, they defile the flesh, on the other hand, they reject authority, and on another hand, they insult the glorious ones.”

[1:8]  ⁴² sn The glorious ones refers to angelic beings rather than mere human beings, just as in 2 Pet 2:10 (on which this passage apparently depends). Whether the angelic beings are good or evil, however, is difficult to tell (hence, the translation is left ambiguous). However, both in 2 Pet 2:11 and here, in Jude 9, the wicked angels seem to be in view (for not even Michael insults them).

[1:10]  ⁴³ tn Or “they should naturally comprehend.” The present tense in this context may have a conative force.