Psalms 9:9-10

9:9 Consequently ¹  the Lord provides safety for the oppressed; ² 

he provides safety in times of trouble. ³ 

9:10 Your loyal followers trust in you, ⁴ 

for you, Lord, do not abandon those who seek your help. ⁵ 

Psalms 84:11-12

84:11 For the Lord God is our sovereign protector. ⁶ 

The Lord bestows favor ⁷  and honor;

he withholds no good thing from those who have integrity. ⁸ 

84:12 O Lord who rules over all, ⁹ 

how blessed are those who trust in you! ¹⁰ 

John 10:27-29

10:27 My sheep listen to my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. 10:28 I give ¹¹  them eternal life, and they will never perish; ¹²  no one will snatch ¹³  them from my hand. 10:29 My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, ¹⁴  and no one can snatch ¹⁵  them from my Father’s hand.

Romans 8:31-39

8:31 What then shall we say about these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 8:32 Indeed, he who ¹⁶  did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all – how will he not also, along with him, freely give us all things? 8:33 Who will bring any charge against God’s elect? ¹⁷  It is God who justifies. 8:34 Who is the one who will condemn? Christ ¹⁸  is the one who died (and more than that, he was raised), who is at the right hand of God, and who also is interceding for us. 8:35 Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will trouble, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? ¹⁹  8:36 As it is written, “For your sake we encounter death all day long; we were considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” ²⁰  8:37 No, in all these things we have complete victory ²¹  through him ²²  who loved us! 8:38 For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor heavenly rulers, ²³  nor things that are present, nor things to come, nor powers, 8:39 nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 8:1

The Believer’s Relationship to the Holy Spirit

8:1 There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. ²⁴ 

Romans 1:5

1:5 Through him ²⁵  we have received grace and our apostleship ²⁶  to bring about the obedience ²⁷  of faith ²⁸  among all the Gentiles on behalf of his name.

[9:9]  ¹ tn Following the imperfect in v. 9, the construction vav (ו) conjunctive + shortened form of the prefixed verb הָיָה (hayah) indicates a consequence or result of the preceding statement. The construction functions this same way in Pss 81:15 and 104:20.

[9:9]  ² tn Heb “and the Lord is an elevated place for the oppressed.” The singular form דָּךְ (dakh, “oppressed”) is collective here.

[9:9]  ³ tn Heb “[he is] an elevated place for times in trouble.” Here an “elevated place” refers to a stronghold, a defensible, secure position that represents a safe haven in times of unrest or distress (cf. NEB “tower of strength”; NIV, NRSV “stronghold”).

[9:10]  ⁴ tn Heb “and the ones who know your name trust in you.” The construction vav (ו) conjunctive + imperfect at the beginning of the verse expresses another consequence of the statement made in v. 8. “To know” the Lord’s “name” means to be his follower, recognizing his authority and maintaining loyalty to him. See Ps 91:14, where “knowing” the Lord’s “name” is associated with loving him.

[9:10]  ⁵ tn Heb “the ones who seek you.”

[84:11]  ⁶ tn Heb “[is] a sun and a shield.” The epithet “sun,” though rarely used of Israel’s God in the OT, was a well-attested royal title in the ancient Near East. For several examples from Ugaritic texts, the Amarna letters, and Assyrian royal inscriptions, see R. B. Chisholm, “An Exegetical and Theological Study of Psalm 18/2 Samuel 22” (Th.D. diss., Dallas Theological Seminary, 1983), 131, n. 2.

[84:11]  ⁷ tn Or “grace.”

[84:11]  ⁸ tn Heb “he does not withhold good to those walking in integrity.”

[84:12]  ⁹ tn Traditionally “Lord of hosts.”

[84:12]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “[Oh] the happiness [of] the man [who] trusts in you.” Hebrew literature often assumes and reflects the male-oriented perspective of ancient Israelite society. The principle stated here is certainly applicable to all people, regardless of their gender or age. To facilitate modern application, we translate the gender and age specific “man” with the plural “those.” The individual referred to here is representative of all followers of God, as the use of the plural form in v. 12b indicates.

[10:28]  ¹¹ tn Grk “And I give.”

[10:28]  ¹² tn Or “will never die” or “will never be lost.”

[10:28]  ¹³ tn Or “no one will seize.”

[10:29]  ¹⁴ tn Or “is superior to all.”

[10:29]  ¹⁵ tn Or “no one can seize.”

[8:32]  ¹⁶ tn Grk “[he] who.” The relative clause continues the question of v. 31 in a way that is awkward in English. The force of v. 32 is thus: “who indeed did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all – How will he not also with him give us all things?”

[8:33]  ¹⁷ sn An allusion to Isa 50:8 where the reference is singular; Paul applies this to all believers (“God’s elect” is plural here).

[8:34]  ¹⁸ tc ‡ A number of significant and early witnesses, along with several others (Ì^46vid א A C F G L Ψ 6 33 81 104 365 1505 al lat bo), read ᾿Ιησοῦς (Ihsous, “Jesus”) after Χριστός (Cristos, “Christ”) in v. 34. But the shorter reading is not unrepresented (B D 0289 1739 1881 Ï sa). Once ᾿Ιησοῦς got into the text, what scribe would omit it? Although the external evidence is on the side of the longer reading, internally such an expansion seems suspect. The shorter reading is thus preferred. NA²⁷ has the word in brackets, indicating doubt as to its authenticity.

[8:35]  ¹⁹ tn Here “sword” is a metonymy that includes both threats of violence and acts of violence, even including death (although death is not necessarily the only thing in view here).

[8:36]  ²⁰ sn A quotation from Ps 44:22.

[8:37]  ²¹ tn BDAG 1034 s.v. ὑπερνικάω states, “as a heightened form of νικᾶν prevail completely ὑπερνικῶμεν we are winning a most glorious victory Ro 8:37.”

[8:37]  ²² tn Here the referent could be either God or Christ, but in v. 39 it is God’s love that is mentioned.

[8:38]  ²³ tn BDAG 138 s.v. ἀρχή 6 takes this term as a reference to angelic or transcendent powers (as opposed to merely human rulers). To clarify this, the adjective “heavenly” has been supplied in the translation. Some interpreters see this as a reference to fallen angels or demonic powers, and this view is reflected in some recent translations (NIV, NLT).

[8:1]  ²⁴ tc The earliest and best witnesses of the Alexandrian and Western texts, as well as a few others (א* B D* F G 6 1506 1739 1881 pc co), have no additional words for v. 1. Later scribes (A D¹ Ψ 81 365 629 pc vg) added the words μὴ κατὰ σάρκα περιπατοῦσιν (mh kata sarka peripatousin, “who do not walk according to the flesh”), while even later ones (א² D² 33^vid Ï) added ἀλλὰ κατὰ πνεῦμα (alla kata pneuma, “but [who do walk] according to the Spirit”). Both the external evidence and the internal evidence are compelling for the shortest reading. The scribes were evidently motivated to add such qualifications (interpolated from v. 4) to insulate Paul’s gospel from charges that it was characterized too much by grace. The KJV follows the longest reading found in Ï.

[1:5]  ²⁵ tn Grk “through whom.”

[1:5]  ²⁶ tn Some interpreters understand the phrase “grace and apostleship” as a hendiadys, translating “grace [i.e., gift] of apostleship.” The pronoun “our” is supplied in the translation to clarify the sense of the statement.

[1:5]  ²⁷ tn Grk “and apostleship for obedience.”

[1:5]  ²⁸ tn The phrase ὑπακοὴν πίστεως has been variously understood as (1) an objective genitive (a reference to the Christian faith, “obedience to [the] faith”); (2) a subjective genitive (“the obedience faith produces [or requires]”); (3) an attributive genitive (“believing obedience”); or (4) as a genitive of apposition (“obedience, [namely] faith”) in which “faith” further defines “obedience.” These options are discussed by C. E. B. Cranfield, Romans (ICC), 1:66. Others take the phrase as deliberately ambiguous; see D. B. Garlington, “The Obedience of Faith in the Letter to the Romans: Part I: The Meaning of ὑπακοὴ πίστεως (Rom 1:5; 16:26),” WTJ 52 (1990): 201-24.