Psalms 27:4

27:4 I have asked the Lord for one thing –

this is what I desire!

I want to live ¹  in the Lord’s house ²  all the days of my life,

so I can gaze at the splendor ³  of the Lord

and contemplate in his temple.

Luke 10:42

10:42 but one thing ⁴  is needed. Mary has chosen the best ⁵  part; it will not be taken away from her.”

Luke 10:2

10:2 He ⁶  said to them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Therefore ask the Lord of the harvest ⁷  to send out ⁸  workers into his harvest.

Luke 3:8

3:8 Therefore produce ⁹  fruit ¹⁰  that proves your repentance, and don’t begin to say ¹¹  to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ ¹²  For I tell you that God can raise up children for Abraham from these stones! ¹³ 

[27:4]  ¹ tn Heb “my living.”

[27:4]  ² sn The Lord’s house. This probably refers to the tabernacle (if one accepts Davidic authorship) or the temple (see Judg 19:18; 1 Sam 1:7, 24; 2 Sam 12:20; 1 Kgs 7:12, 40, 45, 51).

[27:4]  ³ tn Or “beauty.”

[10:42]  ⁴ tc Or, with some mss (̳ [א] B C² L 070^vid ˹ 33 [579] pc), “few things are needed – or only one” (as well as other variants). The textual problem here is a difficult one to decide. The shorter reading is normally preferred, but it is not altogether clear how the variants would arise from it. However, the reading followed in the translation has good support (with some internal variations) from a number of witnesses (Ì^45,75 A C* W Θ Ψ Ë¹³ Ï lat sa).

[10:42]  ⁵ tn Or “better”; Grk “good.” This is an instance of the positive adjective used in place of the superlative adjective. According to ExSyn 298, this could also be treated as a positive for comparative (“better”).

[10:2]  ⁶ tn Here δέ (de) has not been translated.

[10:2]  ⁷ sn The phrase Lord of the harvest recognizes God’s sovereignty over the harvest process.

[10:2]  ⁸ tn Grk “to thrust out.”

[3:8]  ⁹ tn The verb here is ποιέω (poiew; see v. 4).

[3:8]  ¹⁰ tn Grk “fruits.” The plural Greek term καρπούς has been translated with the collective singular “fruit” (so NIV; cf. Matt 3:8 where the singular καρπός is found). Some other translations render the plural καρπούς as “fruits” (e.g., NRSV, NASB, NAB, NKJV).

[3:8]  ¹¹ tn In other words, “do not even begin to think this.”

[3:8]  ¹² sn We have Abraham as our father. John’s warning to the crowds really assumes two things: (1) A number of John’s listeners apparently believed that simply by their physical descent from Abraham, they were certain heirs of the promises made to the patriarch, and (2) God would never judge his covenant people lest he inadvertently place the fulfillment of his promises in jeopardy. In light of this, John tells these people two things: (1) they need to repent and produce fruit in keeping with repentance, for only that saves from the coming wrath, and (2) God will raise up “children for Abraham from these stones” if he wants to. Their disobedience will not threaten the realization of God’s sovereign purposes.

[3:8]  ¹³ sn The point of the statement God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham is that ancestry or association with a tradition tied to the great founder of the Jewish nation is not an automatic source of salvation.