Psalms 51:5

51:5 Look, I was guilty of sin from birth,

a sinner the moment my mother conceived me. ¹ 

Amos 5:15

5:15 Hate what is wrong, love what is right!

Promote ²  justice at the city gate! ³ 

Maybe the Lord, the God who commands armies, will have mercy on ⁴  those who are left from ⁵  Joseph. ⁶ 

Luke 1:35

1:35 The angel replied, ⁷  “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow ⁸  you. Therefore the child ⁹  to be born ¹⁰  will be holy; ¹¹  he will be called the Son of God.

Luke 2:40

2:40 And the child grew and became strong, ¹²  filled with wisdom, ¹³  and the favor ¹⁴  of God ¹⁵  was upon him.

Luke 2:52

2:52 And Jesus increased ¹⁶  in wisdom and in stature, and in favor with God and with people.

Romans 12:9

Conduct in Love

12:9 Love must be ¹⁷  without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil, cling to what is good.

Philippians 1:9-10

1:9 And I pray this, that your love may abound even more and more in knowledge and every kind of insight 1:10 so that you can decide what is best, and thus be sincere and blameless for the day of Christ,

[51:5]  ¹ tn Heb “Look, in wrongdoing I was brought forth, and in sin my mother conceived me.” The prefixed verbal form in the second line is probably a preterite (without vav [ו] consecutive), stating a simple historical fact. The psalmist is not suggesting that he was conceived through an inappropriate sexual relationship (although the verse has sometimes been understood to mean that, or even that all sexual relationships are sinful). The psalmist’s point is that he has been a sinner from the very moment his personal existence began. By going back beyond the time of birth to the moment of conception, the psalmist makes his point more emphatically in the second line than in the first.

[5:15]  ² tn Heb “set up, establish.” In the ancient Near East it was the responsibility especially of the king to establish justice. Here the prophet extends that demand to local leaders and to the nation as a whole (cf. 5:24).

[5:15]  ³ sn Legal disputes were resolved in the city gate (see the note in v. 12). This repetition of this phrase serves to highlight a deliberate contrast to the injustices cited in vv. 11-13.

[5:15]  ⁴ tn Or “will show favor to.”

[5:15]  ⁵ tn Or “the remnant of” (KJV, NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV); CEV “what’s left of your people.”

[5:15]  ⁶ sn Joseph (= Ephraim and Manasseh), as the most prominent of the Israelite tribes, represents the entire northern kingdom.

[1:35]  ⁷ tn Grk “And the angel said to her.” Here καί (kai) has not been translated because of differences between Greek and English style. The pronoun αὐτῇ (auth, “to her”) has not been included in the translation since it is redundant in contemporary English.

[1:35]  ⁸ sn The phrase will overshadow is a reference to God’s glorious presence at work (Exod 40:34-35; Ps 91:4).

[1:35]  ⁹ tn Or “the one born holy will be called the Son of God.” The wording of this phrase depends on whether the adjective is a predicate adjective, as in the text, or is an adjective modifying the participle serving as the subject. The absence of an article with the adjective speaks for a predicate position. Other less appealing options supply a verb for “holy”; thus “the one who is born will be holy”; or argue that both “holy” and “Son of God” are predicates, so “The one who is born will be called holy, the Son of God.”

[1:35]  ¹⁰ tc A few mss (C* Θ Ë¹ 33 pc) add “by you” here. This looks like a scribal addition to bring symmetry to the first three clauses of the angel’s message (note the second person pronoun in the previous two clauses), and is too poorly supported to be seriously considered as authentic.

[1:35]  ¹¹ tn Or “Therefore the holy child to be born will be called the Son of God.” There are two ways to understand the Greek phrase τὸ γεννώμενον ἅγιον (to gennwmenon {agion) here. First, τὸ γεννώμενον could be considered a substantival participle with ἅγιον as an adjective in the second predicate position, thus making a complete sentence; this interpretation is reflected in the translation above. Second, τὸ ἅγιον could be considered a substantival adjective with γεννώμενον acting as an adjectival participle, thus making the phrase the subject of the verb κληθήσεται (klhqhsetai); this interpretation is reflected in the alternative reading. Treating the participle γεννώμενον as adjectival is a bit unnatural for the very reason that it forces one to understand ἅγιον as substantival; this introduces a new idea in the text with ἅγιον when an already new topic is being introduced with γεννώμενον. Semantically this would overload the new subject introduced at this point. For this reason the first interpretation is preferred.

[2:40]  ¹² tc Most mss (A Θ Ψ Ë^1,13 33 Ï) read πνεύματι (pneumati, “in spirit”) after “became strong,” but this looks like an assimilation to Luke 1:80. The better witnesses (א B D L N W pc lat co) lack the word.

[2:40]  ¹³ sn With the description grew and became strong, filled with wisdom Luke emphasizes the humanity of Jesus and his growth toward maturity.

[2:40]  ¹⁴ tn Or “grace.”

[2:40]  ¹⁵ sn On the phrase the favor of God see Luke 1:66.

[2:52]  ¹⁶ tn Or “kept increasing.” The imperfect tense suggests something of a progressive force to the verb.

[12:9]  ¹⁷ tn The verb “must be” is understood in the Greek text.