Romans 9:4-5

9:4 who are Israelites. To them belong ¹  the adoption as sons, ²  the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the temple worship, ³  and the promises. 9:5 To them belong the patriarchs, ⁴  and from them, ⁵  by human descent, ⁶  came the Christ, ⁷  who is God over all, blessed forever! ⁸  Amen.

Matthew 15:24

15:24 So ⁹  he answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”

Matthew 20:28

20:28 just as the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom ¹⁰  for many.”

John 1:11

1:11 He came to what was his own, ¹¹  but ¹²  his own people ¹³  did not receive him. ¹⁴ 

Acts 3:25-26

3:25 You are the sons of the prophets and of the covenant that God made with your ancestors, ¹⁵  saying to Abraham, ‘And in your descendants ¹⁶  all the nations ¹⁷  of the earth will be blessed.’ ¹⁸  3:26 God raised up ¹⁹  his servant and sent him first to you, to bless you by turning ²⁰  each one of you from your iniquities.” ²¹ 

Acts 13:46

13:46 Both Paul and Barnabas replied courageously, ²²  “It was necessary to speak the word of God ²³  to you first. Since you reject it and do not consider yourselves worthy ²⁴  of eternal life, we ²⁵  are turning to the Gentiles. ²⁶ 

Galatians 4:4-5

4:4 But when the appropriate time ²⁷  had come, God sent out his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, 4:5 to redeem those who were under the law, so that we may be adopted as sons with full rights. ²⁸ 

[9:4]  ¹ tn Grk “of whom.” Because of the length and complexity of the Greek sentence, a new sentence was started here in the translation.

[9:4]  ² tn The Greek term υἱοθεσία (Juioqesia) was originally a legal technical term for adoption as a son with full rights of inheritance. BDAG 1024 s.v. notes, “a legal t.t. of ‘adoption’ of children, in our lit., i.e. in Paul, only in a transferred sense of a transcendent filial relationship between God and humans (with the legal aspect, not gender specificity, as major semantic component).” Although some modern translations remove the filial sense completely and render the term merely “adoption” (cf. NAB, ESV), the retention of this component of meaning was accomplished in the present translation by the phrase “as sons.”

[9:4]  ³ tn Or “cultic service.”

[9:5]  ⁴ tn Grk “of whom are the fathers.” Because of the length and complexity of the Greek sentence, a new sentence was started here in the translation.

[9:5]  ⁵ tn Grk “from whom.” Here the relative pronoun has been replaced by a personal pronoun.

[9:5]  ⁶ tn Grk “according to the flesh.”

[9:5]  ⁷ tn Or “Messiah.” (Both Greek “Christ” and Hebrew and Aramaic “Messiah” mean “one who has been anointed.”)

[9:5]  ⁸ tn Or “the Christ, who is over all, God blessed forever,” or “the Messiah. God who is over all be blessed forever!” or “the Messiah who is over all. God be blessed forever!” The translational difficulty here is not text-critical in nature, but is a problem of punctuation. Since the genre of these opening verses of Romans 9 is a lament, it is probably best to take this as an affirmation of Christ’s deity (as the text renders it). Although the other renderings are possible, to see a note of praise to God at the end of this section seems strangely out of place. But for Paul to bring his lament to a crescendo (that is to say, his kinsmen had rejected God come in the flesh), thereby deepening his anguish, is wholly appropriate. This is also supported grammatically and stylistically: The phrase ὁ ὢν (Jo wn, “the one who is”) is most naturally taken as a phrase which modifies something in the preceding context, and Paul’s doxologies are always closely tied to the preceding context. For a detailed examination of this verse, see B. M. Metzger, “The Punctuation of Rom. 9:5,” Christ and the Spirit in the New Testament, 95-112; and M. J. Harris, Jesus as God, 144-72.

[15:24]  ⁹ tn Grk “And answering, he said.” The construction in Greek is somewhat redundant and has been simplified in the translation. Here δέ (de) has been translated as “so” to indicate the implied result of the disciples’ request.

[20:28]  ¹⁰ sn The Greek word for ransom (λύτρον, lutron) is found here and in Mark 10:45 and refers to the payment of a price in order to purchase the freedom of a slave. The idea of Jesus as the “ransom” is that he paid the price with his own life by standing in our place as a substitute, enduring the judgment that we deserved for sin.

[1:11]  ¹¹ tn Grk “to his own things.”

[1:11]  ¹² tn Grk “and,” but in context this is an adversative use of καί (kai) and is thus translated “but.”

[1:11]  ¹³ tn “People” is not in the Greek text but is implied.

[1:11]  ¹⁴ sn His own people did not receive him. There is a subtle irony here: When the λόγος (logos) came into the world, he came to his own (τὰ ἴδια, ta idia, literally “his own things”) and his own people (οἱ ἴδιοι, Joi idioi), who should have known and received him, but they did not. This time John does not say that “his own” did not know him, but that they did not receive him (παρέλαβον, parelabon). The idea is one not of mere recognition, but of acceptance and welcome.

[3:25]  ¹⁵ tn Or “forefathers”; Grk “fathers.”

[3:25]  ¹⁶ tn Or “in your offspring”; Grk “in your seed.”

[3:25]  ¹⁷ tn Or “families.” The Greek word πατριά (patria) can indicate persons of succeeding generations who are related by birth (“lineage,” “family”) but it can also indicate a relatively large unit of people who make up a sociopolitical group and who share a presumed biological descent. In many contexts πατριά is very similar to ἔθνος (eqnos) and λαός (laos). In light of the context of the OT quotation, it is better to translate πατριά as “nations” here.

[3:25]  ¹⁸ sn A quotation from Gen 22:18.

[3:26]  ¹⁹ tn Grk “God raising up his servant, sent him.” The participle ἀναστήσας (anasthsa") has been translated as a finite verb due to requirements of contemporary English style. Some translations (e.g., NIV, NRSV) render this participle as temporal (“when God raised up his servant”).

[3:26]  ²⁰ sn The picture of turning is again seen as the appropriate response to the message. See v. 19 above. In v. 19 it was “turning to,” here it is “turning away from.” The direction of the two metaphors is important.

[3:26]  ²¹ tn For the translation of plural πονηρία (ponhria) as “iniquities,” see G. Harder, TDNT 6:565. The plural is important, since for Luke turning to Jesus means turning away from sins, not just the sin of rejecting Jesus.

[13:46]  ²² tn Grk “Both Paul and Barnabas spoke out courageously and said.” The redundancy is removed in the translation and the verb “replied” is used in keeping with the logical sequence of events. The theme of boldness reappears: Acts 4:24-30; 9:27-28.

[13:46]  ²³ tn Grk “It was necessary that the word of God be spoken.” For smoothness and simplicity of English style, the passive construction has been converted to active voice in the translation.

[13:46]  ²⁴ tn Or “and consider yourselves unworthy.”

[13:46]  ²⁵ tn Grk “behold, we.” In this context ἰδού (idou) is not easily translated into English.

[13:46]  ²⁶ sn This turning to the Gentiles would be a shocking rebuke to 1st century Jews who thought they alone were the recipients of the promise.

[4:4]  ²⁷ tn Grk “the fullness of time” (an idiom for the totality of a period of time, with the implication of proper completion; see L&N 67.69).

[4:5]  ²⁸ tn The Greek term υἱοθεσία (Juioqesia) was originally a legal technical term for adoption as a son with full rights of inheritance. BDAG 1024 s.v. notes, “a legal t.t. of ‘adoption’ of children, in our lit., i.e. in Paul, only in a transferred sense of a transcendent filial relationship between God and humans (with the legal aspect, not gender specificity, as major semantic component).” Although some modern translations remove the filial sense completely and render the term merely “adoption” (cf. NAB), the retention of this component of meaning was accomplished in the present translation by the phrase “as sons.”