Ibrani 11:4

11:4 By faith Abel offered God a greater sacrifice than Cain, and through his faith ¹  he was commended as righteous, because God commended him for his offerings. And through his faith ²  he still speaks, though he is dead.

Ibrani 11:40

11:40 For God had provided something better for us, so that they would be made perfect together with us. ³ 

Pengkhotbah 12:7

12:7 and the dust returns to the earth as it was,

and the life’s breath ⁴  returns to God who gave it.

Pengkhotbah 12:1

Fear God Now Because Old Age and Death Come Quickly

12:1 So remember ⁵  your Creator in the days of your youth –

before ⁶  the difficult ⁷  days come,

and the years draw near when you will say, “I have no pleasure in them”;

Kolose 1:12

1:12 giving thanks to the Father who has qualified you to share ⁸  in the saints’ ⁹  inheritance in the light.

Kolose 1:1

Salutation

1:1 From Paul, ¹⁰  an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother,

Kolose 1:1-2

Salutation

1:1 From Paul, ¹¹  an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, 1:2 to the saints, the faithful ¹²  brothers and sisters ¹³  in Christ, at Colossae. Grace and peace to you ¹⁴  from God our Father! ¹⁵ 

Kolose 1:8

1:8 who also told us of your love in the Spirit.

Filipi 1:21-23

1:21 For to me, living is Christ and dying is gain. 1:22 Now if I am to go on living in the body, ¹⁶  this will mean productive work ¹⁷  for me, yet I don’t know which I prefer: ¹⁸  1:23 I feel torn between the two, ¹⁹  because I have a desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far,

Filipi 3:12-21

Keep Going Forward

3:12 Not that I have already attained this – that is, I have not already been perfected – but I strive to lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus also laid hold of me. ²⁰  3:13 Brothers and sisters, ²¹  I do not consider myself to have attained this. Instead I am single-minded: ²²  Forgetting the things that are behind and reaching out for the things that are ahead, 3:14 with this goal in mind, ²³  I strive toward the prize of the upward call of God ²⁴  in Christ Jesus. 3:15 Therefore let those of us who are “perfect” embrace this point of view. ²⁵  If you think otherwise, God will reveal to you the error of your ways. ²⁶  3:16 Nevertheless, let us live up to the standard ²⁷  that we have already attained. ²⁸ 

3:17 Be imitators of me, ²⁹  brothers and sisters, ³⁰  and watch carefully those who are living this way, just as you have us as an example. 3:18 For many live, about whom I have often told you, and now, with tears, I tell you that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ. 3:19 Their end is destruction, their god is the belly, they exult in their shame, and they think about earthly things. ³¹  3:20 But our citizenship is in heaven – and we also await a savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, 3:21 who will transform these humble bodies of ours ³²  into the likeness of his glorious body by means of that power by which he is able to subject all things to himself.

Kolose 1:12

1:12 giving thanks to the Father who has qualified you to share ³³  in the saints’ ³⁴  inheritance in the light.

Wahyu 7:14-17

7:14 So ³⁵  I said to him, “My lord, you know the answer.” ³⁶  Then ³⁷  he said to me, “These are the ones who have come out of the great tribulation. They ³⁸  have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb! 7:15 For this reason they are before the throne of God, and they serve ³⁹  him day and night in his temple, and the one seated on the throne will shelter them. ⁴⁰  7:16 They will never go hungry or be thirsty again, and the sun will not beat down on them, nor any burning heat, ⁴¹  7:17 because the Lamb in the middle of the throne will shepherd them and lead them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.” ⁴² 

[11:4]  ¹ tn Or “through his sacrifice”; Grk “through which.”

[11:4]  ² tn Or “through his sacrifice”; Grk “through it.”

[11:40]  ³ tn The Greek phrasing emphasizes this point by negating the opposite: “so that they would not be made perfect without us.”

[12:7]  ⁴ tn Or “spirit.” The likely referent is the life’s breath that originates with God. See Eccl 3:19, as well as Gen 2:7; 6:17; 7:22.

[12:1]  ⁵ tn The imperative זְכֹר (zekhor, “Remember!”) is a figurative expression (metonymy of association) for obeying God and acknowledging his lordship over one’s life (e.g., Num 15:40; Deut 8:18; Pss 42:6-7; 63:6-8; 78:42; 103:18; 106:7; 119:52, 55; Jer 51:50; Ezek 20:43; Jonah 2:7; Mal 4:4). The exhortation to fear God and obey his commands in 12:13-14 spells out what it means to “remember” God.

[12:1]  ⁶ tn The temporal adjective עַד (’ad, “before”) appears three times in 12:1-7 (vv. 1b, 2a, 6a). Likewise, the temporal preposition בְּ (bet, “when”) is repeated (vv. 3a, 4b). These seven verses comprise one long sentence in Hebrew: The main clause is 12:1a (“Remember your Creator in the days of your youth”), while 12:1b-7 consists of five subordinate temporal clauses (“before…before…when…when…before…”).

[12:1]  ⁷ tn The adjective רָעָה (ra’ah, “evil”) does not refer here to ethical evil, but to physical difficulty, injury, pain, deprivation and suffering (e.g., Deut 31:17, 21; 32:23; 1 Sam 10:19; Neh 1:3; 2:17; Pss 34:20; 40:13; 88:4; 107:26; Eccl 11:10; Jer 2:27; Lam 3:38); see HALOT 1263 s.v. רָעָה 4.b; BDB 949 s.v. רָעָה 2.

[1:12]  ⁸ tn BDAG 473 s.v. ἱκανόω states, “τινὰ εἴς τι someone for someth. Col 1:12.” The point of the text is that God has qualified the saints for a “share” or “portion” in the inheritance of the saints.

[1:12]  ⁹ tn Grk “the inheritance of the saints.” The genitive noun τῶν ἁγίων (twn Jagiwn) is a possessive genitive: “the saints’ inheritance.”

[1:1]  ¹⁰ tn Grk “Paul.” The word “from” is not in the Greek text, but has been supplied to indicate the sender of the letter.

[1:1]  ¹¹ tn Grk “Paul.” The word “from” is not in the Greek text, but has been supplied to indicate the sender of the letter.

[1:2]  ¹² 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]  ¹³ 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]  ¹⁴ tn Or “Grace to you and peace.”

[1:2]  ¹⁵ 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.

[1:22]  ¹⁶ tn Grk “flesh.”

[1:22]  ¹⁷ tn Grk “fruit of work”; the genitive ἔργου (ergou) is taken as an attributed genitive in which the head noun, καρπός (karpos), functions attributively (cf. ExSyn 89-91).

[1:22]  ¹⁸ tn Grk “what I shall prefer.” The Greek verb αἱρέω (Jairew) could also mean “choose,” but in this context such a translation is problematic for it suggests that Paul could perhaps choose suicide (cf. L&N 30.86).

[1:22]  sn I don’t know what I prefer. Paul is here struggling with what would be most beneficial for both him and the church. He resolves this issue in vv. 24-25.

[1:23]  ¹⁹ tn Grk “I am hard-pressed between the two.” Cf. L&N 30.18.

[3:12]  ²⁰ tn Grk “that for which I also was laid hold of by Christ Jesus.” The passive has been translated as active in keeping with contemporary English style.

[3:13]  ²¹ tn Grk “brothers.” See note on the phrase “brothers and sisters” in 1:12.

[3:13]  ²² tn Grk “But this one thing (I do).”

[3:14]  ²³ tn Grk “according to the goal.”

[3:14]  ²⁴ tn Grk “prize, namely, the heavenly calling of God.”

[3:15]  ²⁵ tn Grk “those of us who are ‘perfect’ should think this,” or possibly “those of us who are mature should think this.”

[3:15]  sn The adjective perfect comes from the same root as the verb perfected in v. 12; Paul may well be employing a wordplay to draw in his opponents. Thus, perfect would then be in quotation marks and Paul would then argue that no one – neither they nor he – is in fact perfect. The thrust of vv. 1-16 is that human credentials can produce nothing that is pleasing to God (vv. 1-8). Instead of relying on such, Paul urges his readers to trust God for their righteousness (v. 9) rather than their own efforts, and at the same time to press on for the prize that awaits them (vv. 12-14). He argues further that perfection is unattainable in this life (v. 15), yet the level of maturity that one has reached should not for this reason be abandoned (v. 16).

[3:15]  ²⁶ tn Grk “reveal this to you.” The referent of the pronoun “this” is the fact that the person is thinking differently than Paul does. This has been specified in the translation with the phrase “the error of your ways”; Paul is stating that God will make it known to these believers when they are not in agreement with Paul.

[3:16]  ²⁷ tc Although κανόνι (kanoni, “standard, rule”) is found in most witnesses, though in various locations in this verse (א² D² Ψ 075 Ï), it is almost surely a motivated reading, for it clarifies the cryptic τῷ αὐτῷ (tw autw, “the same”). Both the fact that the word floats, and that there are other variants which accomplish greater clarity by other means, strongly suggests the secondary nature of any of the longer readings here. Further, the shortest text has excellent and early support in Ì^16,46 א* A B I^vid 6 33 1739 co, rendering it decidedly the preferred reading. The translation adds “standard” because of English requirements, not because of textual basis.

[3:16]  ²⁸ tn Grk “Nevertheless, to what we have attained, to the same hold fast.”

[3:17]  ²⁹ tn Or “become fellow imitators with me [of Christ].”

[3:17]  ³⁰ tn Grk “brothers.” See note on the phrase “brothers and sisters” in 1:12.

[3:19]  ³¹ tn Grk “whose end is destruction, whose god is the belly and glory is their shame, these who think of earthly things.”

[3:21]  ³² tn Grk “transform the body of our humility.”

[1:12]  ³³ tn BDAG 473 s.v. ἱκανόω states, “τινὰ εἴς τι someone for someth. Col 1:12.” The point of the text is that God has qualified the saints for a “share” or “portion” in the inheritance of the saints.

[1:12]  ³⁴ tn Grk “the inheritance of the saints.” The genitive noun τῶν ἁγίων (twn Jagiwn) is a possessive genitive: “the saints’ inheritance.”

[7:14]  ³⁵ tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “so” to indicate the implied result of the previous question.

[7:14]  ³⁶ tn Though the expression “the answer” is not in the Greek text, it is clearly implied. Direct objects in Greek were frequently omitted when clear from the context.

[7:14]  ³⁷ tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “then” to indicate the implied sequence of events within the vision.

[7:14]  ³⁸ tn Because of the length and complexity of the Greek sentence, a new sentence was started here in the translation. Here καί (kai) has not been translated because of differences between Greek and English style.

[7:15]  ³⁹ tn Or “worship.” The word here is λατρεύω (latreuw).

[7:15]  ⁴⁰ tn Grk “will spread his tent over them,” normally an idiom for taking up residence with someone, but when combined with the preposition ἐπί (epi, “over”) the idea is one of extending protection or shelter (BDAG 929 s.v. σκηνόω).

[7:16]  ⁴¹ tn An allusion to Isa 49:10. The phrase “burning heat” is one word in Greek (καῦμα, kauma) that refers to a burning, intensely-felt heat. See BDAG 536 s.v.

[7:17]  ⁴² sn An allusion to Isa 25:8.