Zechariah 3:7

3:7 “The Lord who rules over all says, ‘If you live ¹  and work according to my requirements, you will be able to preside over my temple ²  and attend to my courtyards, and I will allow you to come and go among these others who are standing by you.

Isaiah 3:10

3:10 Tell the innocent ³  it will go well with them, ⁴ 

for they will be rewarded for what they have done. ⁵ 

Isaiah 58:10-14

58:10 You must ⁶  actively help the hungry

and feed the oppressed. ⁷ 

Then your light will dispel the darkness, ⁸ 

and your darkness will be transformed into noonday. ⁹ 

58:11 The Lord will continually lead you;

he will feed you even in parched regions. ¹⁰ 

He will give you renewed strength, ¹¹ 

and you will be like a well-watered garden,

like a spring that continually produces water.

58:12 Your perpetual ruins will be rebuilt; ¹² 

you will reestablish the ancient foundations.

You will be called, ‘The one who repairs broken walls,

the one who makes the streets inhabitable again.’ ¹³ 

58:13 You must ¹⁴  observe the Sabbath ¹⁵ 

rather than doing anything you please on my holy day. ¹⁶ 

You must look forward to the Sabbath ¹⁷ 

and treat the Lord’s holy day with respect. ¹⁸ 

You must treat it with respect by refraining from your normal activities,

and by refraining from your selfish pursuits and from making business deals. ¹⁹ 

58:14 Then you will find joy in your relationship to the Lord, ²⁰ 

and I will give you great prosperity, ²¹ 

and cause crops to grow on the land I gave to your ancestor Jacob.” ²² 

Know for certain that the Lord has spoken. ²³ 

Romans 16:26

16:26 but now is disclosed, and through the prophetic scriptures has been made known to all the nations, according to the command of the eternal God, to bring about the obedience of faith –

Romans 16:2

16:2 so that you may welcome her in the Lord in a way worthy of the saints and provide her with whatever help she may need from you, for she has been a great help to many, including me.

Romans 1:5-10

1:5 Through him ²⁴  we have received grace and our apostleship ²⁵  to bring about the obedience ²⁶  of faith ²⁷  among all the Gentiles on behalf of his name. 1:6 You also are among them, ²⁸  called to belong to Jesus Christ. ²⁹  1:7 To all those loved by God in Rome, ³⁰  called to be saints: ³¹  Grace and peace to you ³²  from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ!

Paul’s Desire to Visit Rome

1:8 First of all, ³³  I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is proclaimed throughout the whole world. 1:9 For God, whom I serve in my spirit by preaching the gospel ³⁴  of his Son, is my witness that ³⁵  I continually remember you 1:10 and I always ask ³⁶  in my prayers, if perhaps now at last I may succeed in visiting you according to the will of God. ³⁷ 

[3:7]  ¹ tn Heb “walk,” a frequent biblical metaphor for lifestyle or conduct; TEV “If you [+ truly CEV] obey.” To “walk” in the ways of the Lord is to live life as he intends (cf. Deut 8:6; 10:12-22; 28:9).

[3:7]  ² sn The statement you will be able to preside over my temple (Heb “house,” a reference to the Jerusalem temple) is a hint of the increasingly important role the high priest played in the postexilic Jewish community, especially in the absence of a monarchy. It also suggests the messianic character of the eschatological priesthood in which the priest would have royal prerogatives.

[3:10]  ³ tn Or “the righteous” (KJV, NASB, NIV, TEV); NLT “those who are godly.”

[3:10]  ⁴ tn Heb “that it is good.”

[3:10]  ⁵ tn Heb “for the fruit of their deeds they will eat.”

[58:10]  ⁶ tn Heb “if you.” See the note on “you must” in v. 9b.

[58:10]  ⁷ tn Heb “If you furnish for the hungry [with] your being, and the appetite of the oppressed you satisfy.”

[58:10]  ⁸ tn Heb “will rise in the darkness.”

[58:10]  ⁹ tn Heb “and your darkness [will be] like noonday.”

[58:11]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “he will satisfy in parched regions your appetite.”

[58:11]  ¹¹ tn Heb “and your bones he will strengthen.”

[58:12]  ¹² tn Heb “and they will build from you ancient ruins.”

[58:12]  ¹³ tc The Hebrew text has “the one who restores paths for dwelling.” The idea of “paths to dwell in” is not a common notion. Some have proposed emending נְתִיבוֹת (nÿtivot, “paths”) to נְתִיצוֹת (nÿtitsot, “ruins”), a passive participle from נָתַץ (natats, “tear down”; see HALOT 732 s.v. *נְתִיצָה), because tighter parallelism with the preceding line is achieved. However, none of the textual sources support this emendation. The line may mean that paths must be repaired in order to dwell in the land.

[58:13]  ¹⁴ tn Lit., “if you.” In the Hebrew text vv. 13-14 are one long conditional sentence. The protasis (“if” clauses appear in v. 13), with the apodosis (“then” clause) appearing in v. 14.

[58:13]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “if you turn from the Sabbath your feet.”

[58:13]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “[from] doing your desires on my holy day.” The Qumran scroll 1QIsa^a supplies the preposition מִן (min) on “doing.”

[58:13]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “and call the Sabbath a pleasure”; KJV, NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV “a delight.”

[58:13]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “and [call] the holy [day] of the Lord honored.” On קָדוֹשׁ (qadosh, “holy”) as indicating a time period, see BDB 872 s.v. 2.e (cf. also Neh 8:9-11).

[58:13]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “and you honor it [by refraining] from accomplishing your ways, from finding your desire and speaking a word.” It is unlikely that the last phrase (“speaking a word”) is a prohibition against talking on the Sabbath; instead it probably refers to making transactions or plans (see Hos 10:4). Some see here a reference to idle talk (cf. 2 Sam 19:30).

[58:14]  ²⁰ tn For a parallel use of the phrase “find joy in” (Hitpael of עָנַג [’anag] followed by the preposition עַל [’al]), see Ps 37:4.

[58:14]  ²¹ tn Heb “and I will cause you to ride upon the heights of the land.” The statement seems to be an allusion to Deut 32:13, where it is associated, as here, with God’s abundant provision of food.

[58:14]  ²² tn Heb “and I will cause you to eat the inheritance of Jacob your father.” The Hebrew term נַחֲלָה (nakhalah) likely stands by metonymy for the crops that grow on Jacob’s “inheritance” (i.e., the land he inherited as a result of God’s promise).

[58:14]  ²³ tn Heb “for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.” The introductory כִּי (ki) may be asseverative (as reflected in the translation) or causal/explanatory, explaining why the preceding promise will become reality (because it is guaranteed by the divine word).

[1:5]  ²⁴ tn Grk “through whom.”

[1:5]  ²⁵ 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]  ²⁶ tn Grk “and apostleship for obedience.”

[1:5]  ²⁷ 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.

[1:6]  ²⁸ tn Grk “among whom you also are called.” Because of the length and complexity of the Greek sentence, a new sentence was started here in the translation. The NIV, with its translation “And you also are among those who are called,” takes the phrase ἐν οἳς ἐστε to refer to the following clause rather than the preceding, so that the addressees of the letter (“you also”) are not connected with “all the Gentiles” mentioned at the end of v. 5. It is more likely, however, that the relative pronoun οἳς has τοῖς ἔθνεσιν as its antecedent, which would indicate that the church at Rome was predominantly Gentile.

[1:6]  ²⁹ tn Grk “called of Jesus Christ.”

[1:7]  ³⁰ map For location see JP4 A1.

[1:7]  ³¹ tn Although the first part of v. 7 is not a complete English sentence, it maintains the “From…to” pattern used in all the Pauline letters to indicate the sender and the recipients. Here, however, there are several intervening verses (vv. 2-6), which makes the first half of v. 7 appear as an isolated sentence fragment.

[1:7]  ³² tn Grk “Grace to you and peace.”

[1:8]  ³³ tn Grk “First.” Paul never mentions a second point, so J. B. Phillips translated “I must begin by telling you….”

[1:9]  ³⁴ tn Grk “whom I serve in my spirit in the gospel.”

[1:9]  ³⁵ tn Grk “as.”

[1:10]  ³⁶ tn Grk “remember you, always asking.”

[1:10]  ³⁷ tn Grk “succeed in coming to you in the will of God.”