Psalms 34:4

34:4 I sought the Lord’s help ¹  and he answered me;

he delivered me from all my fears.

Psalms 55:4-5

55:4 My heart beats violently ²  within me;

the horrors of death overcome me. ³ 

55:5 Fear and panic overpower me; ⁴ 

terror overwhelms ⁵  me.

Psalms 55:1

Psalm 55 ⁶ 

For the music director, to be accompanied by stringed instruments; a well-written song ⁷  by David.

55:1 Listen, O God, to my prayer!

Do not ignore ⁸  my appeal for mercy!

Psalms 21:10

21:10 You destroy their offspring ⁹  from the earth,

their descendants ¹⁰  from among the human race. ¹¹ 

Psalms 21:12

21:12 For you make them retreat ¹² 

when you shoot your arrows at them. ¹³ 

Psalms 30:6

30:6 In my self-confidence I said,

“I will never be upended.” ¹⁴ 

Psalms 30:2

30:2 O Lord my God,

I cried out to you and you healed me. ¹⁵ 

Psalms 20:3

20:3 May he take notice ¹⁶  of your offerings;

may he accept ¹⁷  your burnt sacrifice! (Selah)

Psalms 20:2

20:2 May he send you help from his temple; ¹⁸ 

from Zion may he give you support!

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, ¹⁹  have not ceased praying for you and asking God ²⁰  to fill ²¹  you with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, 1:10 so that you may live ²²  worthily of the Lord and please him in all respects ²³  – bearing fruit in every good deed, growing in the knowledge of God,

Colossians 1:5-6

1:5 Your faith and love have arisen ²⁴  from the hope laid up ²⁵  for you in heaven, which you have heard about in the message of truth, the gospel ²⁶  1:6 that has come to you. Just as in the entire world this gospel ²⁷  is bearing fruit and growing, so it has also been bearing fruit and growing ²⁸  among you from the first day you heard it and understood the grace of God in truth.

[34:4]  ¹ tn Heb “I sought the Lord.”

[55:4]  ² tn Heb “shakes, trembles.”

[55:4]  ³ tn Heb “the terrors of death have fallen on me.”

[55:5]  ⁴ tn Heb “fear and trembling enter into me.”

[55:5]  ⁵ tn Heb “covers.” The prefixed verbal form with vav (ו) consecutive carries on the descriptive (present progressive) force of the preceding imperfect.

[55:1]  ⁶ sn Psalm 55. The suffering and oppressed author laments that one of his friends has betrayed him, but he is confident that God will vindicate him by punishing his deceitful enemies.

[55:1]  ⁷ tn The meaning of the Hebrew term מַשְׂכִּיל (maskil) is uncertain. See the note on the phrase “well-written song” in the superscription of Ps 52.

[55:1]  ⁸ tn Heb “hide yourself from.”

[21:10]  ⁹ tn Heb “fruit.” The next line makes it clear that offspring is in view.

[21:10]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “seed.”

[21:10]  ¹¹ tn Heb “sons of man.”

[21:12]  ¹² tn Heb “you make them a shoulder,” i.e., “you make them turn and run, showing the back of their neck and shoulders.”

[21:12]  ¹³ tn Heb “with your bowstrings you fix against their faces,” i.e., “you fix your arrows on the bowstrings to shoot at them.”

[30:6]  ¹⁴ sn In my self-confidence I said… Here the psalmist begins to fill in the background of the crisis referred to in the earlier verses. He had been arrogant and self-confident, so the Lord withdrew his protection and allowed trouble to invade his life (vv. 8-11).

[30:2]  ¹⁵ sn You healed me. Apparently the psalmist was plagued by a serious illness that threatened his life. See Ps 41.

[20:3]  ¹⁶ tn Or “remember.” For other examples of the verb זָכַר (zakhar) carrying the nuance “take notice of,” see Pss 8:4 and 9:12.

[20:3]  ¹⁷ tc Heb “consider as fat.” The verbal form should probably be emended to יְדַשְּׁנֶהָ (yÿdashÿneha), the final he (ה) being understood as a third feminine singular pronominal suffix referring back to the feminine noun “burnt sacrifice.”

[20:2]  ¹⁸ tc Heb “from [the] temple.” The third masculine singular pronominal suffix (ן, nun) has probably been accidentally omitted by haplography. Note that the following word begins with a prefixed vav (ו). See P. C. Craigie, Psalms 1-50 (WBC), 184.

[1:9]  ¹⁹ 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]  ²⁰ 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]  ²¹ 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]  ²² 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]  ²³ 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.”

[1:5]  ²⁴ tn Col 1:3-8 form one long sentence in the Greek text and have been divided at the end of v. 4 and v. 6 and within v. 6 for clarity, in keeping with the tendency in contemporary English toward shorter sentences. Thus the phrase “Your faith and love have arisen from the hope” is literally “because of the hope.” The perfect tense “have arisen” was chosen in the English to reflect the fact that the recipients of the letter had acquired this hope at conversion in the past, but that it still remains and motivates them to trust in Christ and to love one another.

[1:5]  ²⁵ tn BDAG 113 s.v. ἀπόκειμαι 2 renders ἀποκειμένην (apokeimenhn) with the expression “reserved” in this verse.

[1:5]  ²⁶ tn The term “the gospel” (τοῦ εὐαγγελίου, tou euangeliou) is in apposition to “the word of truth” (τῷ λόγῳ τῆς ἀληθείας, tw logw th" alhqeia") as indicated in the translation.

[1:6]  ²⁷ tn Grk “just as in the entire world it is bearing fruit.” The antecedent (“the gospel”) of the implied subject (“it”) of ἐστιν (estin) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[1:6]  ²⁸ tn Though the participles are periphrastic with the present tense verb ἐστίν (estin), the presence of the temporal indicator “from the day” in the next clause indicates that this is a present tense that reaches into the past and should be translated as “has been bearing fruit and growing.” For a discussion of this use of the present tense, see ExSyn 519-20.