Psalms 71:5-6

71:5 For you give me confidence, ¹  O Lord;

O Lord, I have trusted in you since I was young. ² 

71:6 I have leaned on you since birth; ³ 

you pulled me ⁴  from my mother’s womb.

I praise you continually. ⁵ 

Psalms 71:17-18

71:17 O God, you have taught me since I was young,

and I am still declaring ⁶  your amazing deeds.

71:18 Even when I am old and gray, ⁷ 

O God, do not abandon me,

until I tell the next generation about your strength,

and those coming after me about your power. ⁸ 

Psalms 71:1

Psalm 71 ⁹ 

71:1 In you, O Lord, I have taken shelter!

Never let me be humiliated!

Psalms 7:12

7:12 If a person ¹⁰  does not repent, God sharpens his sword ¹¹ 

and prepares to shoot his bow. ¹² 

Isaiah 46:3-4

46:3 “Listen to me, O family of Jacob, ¹³ 

all you who are left from the family of Israel, ¹⁴ 

you who have been carried from birth, ¹⁵ 

you who have been supported from the time you left the womb. ¹⁶ 

46:4 Even when you are old, I will take care of you, ¹⁷ 

even when you have gray hair, I will carry you.

I made you and I will support you;

I will carry you and rescue you. ¹⁸ 

Isaiah 46:2

46:2 Together they bend low and kneel down;

they are unable to rescue the images; ¹⁹ 

they themselves ²⁰  head off into captivity. ²¹ 

Colossians 1:9-10

Paul’s Prayer for the Growth of the Church

1:9 For this reason we also, from the day we heard about you, ²²  have not ceased praying for you and asking God ²³  to fill ²⁴  you with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, 1:10 so that you may live ²⁵  worthily of the Lord and please him in all respects ²⁶  – bearing fruit in every good deed, growing in the knowledge of God,

Colossians 1:2

1:2 to the saints, the faithful ²⁷  brothers and sisters ²⁸  in Christ, at Colossae. Grace and peace to you ²⁹  from God our Father! ³⁰ 

Colossians 4:17-18

4:17 And tell Archippus, “See to it that you complete the ministry you received in the Lord.”

4:18 I, Paul, write this greeting by my own hand. ³¹  Remember my chains. ³²  Grace be with you. ³³ 

[71:5]  ¹ tn Heb “for you [are] my hope.”

[71:5]  ² tn Heb “O Lord, my source of confidence from my youth.”

[71:6]  ³ tn Heb “from the womb.”

[71:6]  ⁴ tc The form in the MT is derived from גָזָה (gazah, “to cut off”), perhaps picturing God as the one who severed the psalmist’s umbilical cord. Many interpreters and translators prefer to emend the text to גֹחִי (gokhiy), from גוּח (gukh) or גִיח, (gikh, “pull out”; see Ps 22:9; cf. the present translation) or to עוּזִּי (’uzziy, “my strength”; cf. NEB “my protector since I left my mother’s womb”).

[71:6]  ⁵ tn Heb “in you [is] my praise continually.”

[71:17]  ⁶ tn Heb “and until now I am declaring.”

[71:18]  ⁷ tn Heb “and even unto old age and gray hair.”

[71:18]  ⁸ tn Heb “until I declare your arm to a generation, to everyone who comes your power.” God’s “arm” here is an anthropomorphism that symbolizes his great strength.

[71:1]  ⁹ sn Psalm 71. The psalmist prays for divine intervention and expresses his confidence that God will protect and vindicate him. The first three verses are very similar to Ps 31:1-3a.

[7:12]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “If he”; the referent (a person who is a sinner) has been specified in the translation for clarity. The subject of the first verb is understood as the sinner who fails to repent of his ways and becomes the target of God’s judgment (vv. 9, 14-16).

[7:12]  ¹¹ tn Heb “if he does not return, his sword he sharpens.” The referent (God) of the pronominal subject of the second verb (“sharpens”) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[7:12]  ¹² tn Heb “his bow he treads and prepares it.” “Treading the bow” involved stepping on one end of it in order to string it and thus prepare it for battle.

[46:3]  ¹³ tn Heb “house of Jacob”; TEV “descendants of Jacob.”

[46:3]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “and all the remnant of the house of Israel.”

[46:3]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “from the womb” (so NRSV); KJV “from the belly”; NAB “from your infancy.”

[46:3]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “who have been lifted up from the womb.”

[46:4]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “until old age, I am he” (NRSV similar); NLT “I will be your God throughout your lifetime.”

[46:4]  ¹⁸ sn Unlike the weary idol gods, whose images must be carried by animals, the Lord carries his weary people.

[46:2]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “[the] burden,” i.e., their images, the heavy burden carried by the animals.

[46:2]  ²⁰ tn נַפְשָׁם (nafsham, “their souls/lives”) is equivalent here to a third masculine plural suffix, but the third feminine singular verb הָלָכָה (halakhah, “they go”) agrees with the feminine noun נֶפֶשׁ (nefesh, “soul, life”).

[46:2]  ²¹ sn The downfall of Babylon is depicted here. The idols are carried off by the victorious enemy; the gods are likened to defeated captives who cower before the enemy and are taken into exile.

[1:9]  ²² 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]  ²³ 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]  ²⁴ 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]  ²⁵ 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]  ²⁶ 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]  ²⁷ 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]  ²⁸ 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]  ²⁹ tn Or “Grace to you and peace.”

[1:2]  ³⁰ 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.

[4:18]  ³¹ tn Grk “the greeting by my hand, of Paul.”

[4:18]  ³² tn Or “my imprisonment.”

[4:18]  ³³ tc Most witnesses, including a few important ones (א² D Ψ 075 0278 Ï lat sy), conclude this letter with ἀμήν (amhn, “amen”). Such a conclusion is routinely added by scribes to NT books because a few of these books originally had such an ending (cf. Rom 16:27; Gal 6:18; Jude 25). A majority of Greek witnesses have the concluding ἀμήν in every NT book except Acts, James, and 3 John (and even in these books, ἀμήν is found in some witnesses). It is thus a predictable variant. Further, the external evidence for the omission is quite compelling (א* A B C F G 048 6 33 81 1739* 1881 sa). The strongly preferred reading is therefore the omission of ἀμήν.