Psalms 118:13

118:13 “You aggressively attacked me ¹  and tried to knock me down, ² 

but the Lord helped me.

Psalms 124:1-2

Psalm 124 ³ 

A song of ascents, ⁴  by David.

124:1 “If the Lord had not been on our side” –

let Israel say this! –

124:2 if the Lord had not been on our side,

when men attacked us, ⁵ 

Psalms 125:1

Psalm 125 ⁶ 

A song of ascents. ⁷ 

125:1 Those who trust in the Lord are like Mount Zion;

it cannot be upended and will endure forever.

Psalms 142:4-5

142:4 Look to the right and see!

No one cares about me. ⁸ 

I have nowhere to run; ⁹ 

no one is concerned about my life. ¹⁰ 

142:5 I cry out to you, O Lord;

I say, “You are my shelter,

my security ¹¹  in the land of the living.”

John 16:32

16:32 Look, a time ¹²  is coming – and has come – when you will be scattered, each one to his own home, ¹³  and I will be left alone. ¹⁴  Yet ¹⁵  I am not alone, because my Father ¹⁶  is with me.

John 16:2

16:2 They will put you out of ¹⁷  the synagogue, ¹⁸  yet a time ¹⁹  is coming when the one who kills you will think he is offering service to God. ²⁰ 

Colossians 1:8-10

1:8 who also told us of your love in the Spirit.

Paul’s Prayer for the Growth of the Church

1:9 For this reason we also, from the day we heard about you, ²¹  have not ceased praying for you and asking God ²²  to fill ²³  you with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, 1:10 so that you may live ²⁴  worthily of the Lord and please him in all respects ²⁵  – bearing fruit in every good deed, growing in the knowledge of God,

Colossians 1:2

1:2 to the saints, the faithful ²⁶  brothers and sisters ²⁷  in Christ, at Colossae. Grace and peace to you ²⁸  from God our Father! ²⁹ 

Colossians 4:16-17

4:16 And after ³⁰  you have read this letter, have it read ³¹  to the church of Laodicea. In turn, read the letter from Laodicea ³²  as well. 4:17 And tell Archippus, “See to it that you complete the ministry you received in the Lord.”

[118:13]  ¹ tn Heb “pushing, you pushed me.” The infinitive absolute emphasizes the following verbal idea. The psalmist appears to address the nations as if they were an individual enemy. Some find this problematic and emend the verb form (which is a Qal perfect second masculine singular with a first person singular suffix) to נִדְחֵיתִי (nidkheti), a Niphal perfect first common singular, “I was pushed.”

[118:13]  ² tn Heb “to fall,” i.e., “that [I] might fall.”

[124:1]  ³ sn Psalm 124. Israel acknowledges that the Lord delivered them from certain disaster.

[124:1]  ⁴ sn The precise significance of this title, which appears in Pss 120-134, is unclear. Perhaps worshipers recited these psalms when they ascended the road to Jerusalem to celebrate annual religious festivals. For a discussion of their background see L. C. Allen, Psalms 101-150 (WBC), 219-21.

[124:2]  ⁵ tn Heb “rose up against us.”

[125:1]  ⁶ sn Psalm 125. The psalmist affirms his confidence in the Lord’s protection and justice.

[125:1]  ⁷ sn The precise significance of this title, which appears in Pss 120-134, is unclear. Perhaps worshipers recited these psalms when they ascended the road to Jerusalem to celebrate annual religious festivals. For a discussion of their background see L. C. Allen, Psalms 101-150 (WBC), 219-21.

[142:4]  ⁸ tn Heb “there is no one who recognizes me.”

[142:4]  ⁹ tn Heb “ a place of refuge perishes from me.”

[142:4]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “there is no one who seeks for the sake of my life.”

[142:5]  ¹¹ tn Heb “my portion.” The psalmist compares the Lord to landed property, which was foundational to economic stability in ancient Israel.

[16:32]  ¹² tn Grk “an hour.”

[16:32]  ¹³ tn Grk “each one to his own”; the word “home” is not in the Greek text but is implied. The phrase “each one to his own” may be completed in a number of different ways: “each one to his own property”; “each one to his own family”; or “each one to his own home.” The last option seems to fit most easily into the context and so is used in the translation.

[16:32]  ¹⁴ sn The proof of Jesus’ negative evaluation of the disciples’ faith is now given: Jesus foretells their abandonment of him at his arrest, trials, and crucifixion (I will be left alone). This parallels the synoptic accounts in Matt 26:31 and Mark 14:27 when Jesus, after the last supper and on the way to Gethsemane, foretold the desertion of the disciples as a fulfillment of Zech 13:7: “Strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered.” Yet although the disciples would abandon Jesus, he reaffirmed that he was not alone, because the Father was still with him.

[16:32]  ¹⁵ tn Grk “And” (but with some contrastive force).

[16:32]  ¹⁶ tn Grk “the Father.”

[16:2]  ¹⁷ tn Or “expel you from.”

[16:2]  ¹⁸ sn See the note on synagogue in 6:59.

[16:2]  ¹⁹ tn Grk “an hour.”

[16:2]  ²⁰ sn Jesus now refers not to the time of his return to the Father, as he has frequently done up to this point, but to the disciples’ time of persecution. They will be excommunicated from Jewish synagogues. There will even be a time when those who kill Jesus’ disciples will think that they are offering service to God by putting the disciples to death. Because of the reference to service offered to God, it is almost certain that Jewish opposition is intended here in both cases rather than Jewish opposition in the first instance (putting the disciples out of synagogues) and Roman opposition in the second (putting the disciples to death). Such opposition materializes later and is recorded in Acts: The stoning of Stephen in 7:58-60 and the slaying of James the brother of John by Herod Agrippa I in Acts 12:2-3 are notable examples.

[1:9]  ²¹ tn Or “heard about it”; Grk “heard.” There is no direct object stated in the Greek (direct objects were frequently omitted in Greek when clear from the context). A direct object is expected by an English reader, however, so most translations supply one. Here, however, it is not entirely clear what the author “heard”: a number of translations supply “it” (so KJV, NASB, NRSV; NAB “this”), but this could refer back either to (1) “your love in the Spirit” at the end of v. 8, or (2) “your faith in Christ Jesus and the love that you have for all the saints” (v. 4). In light of this uncertainty, other translations supply “about you” (TEV, NIV, CEV, NLT). This is preferred by the present translation since, while it does not resolve the ambiguity entirely, it does make it less easy for the English reader to limit the reference only to “your love in the Spirit” at the end of v. 8.

[1:9]  ²² tn The term “God” does not appear in the Greek text, but the following reference to “the knowledge of his will” makes it clear that “God” is in view as the object of the “praying and asking,” and should therefore be included in the English translation for clarity.

[1:9]  ²³ tn The ἵνα (Jina) clause has been translated as substantival, indicating the content of the prayer and asking. The idea of purpose may also be present in this clause.

[1:10]  ²⁴ 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]  ²⁵ 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]  ²⁶ 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]  ²⁷ 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]  ²⁸ tn Or “Grace to you and peace.”

[1:2]  ²⁹ 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.

[4:16]  ³⁰ tn Grk “when.”

[4:16]  ³¹ tn The construction beginning with the imperative ποιήσατε ἵνα…ἀναγνωσθῇ (poihsate Jina…anagnwsqh) should be translated as “have it read” where the conjunction ἵνα functions to mark off its clause as the direct object of the imperative ποιήσατε. The content of the clause (“reading the letter”) is what Paul commands with the imperative ποιήσατε. Thus the translation “have it read” has been used here.

[4:16]  ³² sn This letter is otherwise unknown, but some have suggested that it is the letter known today as Ephesians.