Matius 2:8

2:8 He ¹  sent them to Bethlehem and said, “Go and look carefully for the child. When you find him, inform me so that I can go and worship him as well.”

Matius 5:45

5:45 so that you may be like ²  your Father in heaven, since he causes the sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.

Matius 6:24

6:24 “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate ³  the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise ⁴  the other. You cannot serve God and money. ⁵ 

Matius 7:6

7:6 Do not give what is holy to dogs or throw your pearls before pigs; otherwise they will trample them under their feet and turn around and tear you to pieces. ⁶ 

Matius 8:4

8:4 Then Jesus said to him, “See that you do not speak to anyone, ⁷  but go, show yourself to a priest, and bring the offering ⁸  that Moses commanded, ⁹  as a testimony to them.” ¹⁰ 

Matius 10:42

10:42 And whoever gives only a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple, I tell you the truth, ¹¹  he will never lose his reward.”

Matius 16:19

16:19 I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth will have been bound in heaven, and whatever you release on earth will have been released in heaven.”

Matius 18:6

18:6 “But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, ¹²  it would be better for him to have a huge millstone ¹³  hung around his neck and to be drowned in the open sea. ¹⁴ 

Matius 18:15

Restoring Christian Relationships

18:15 “If ¹⁵  your brother ¹⁶  sins, ¹⁷  go and show him his fault ¹⁸  when the two of you are alone. If he listens to you, you have regained your brother.

Matius 18:17

18:17 If ¹⁹  he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. If ²⁰  he refuses to listen to the church, treat him like ²¹  a Gentile ²²  or a tax collector. ²³ 

Matius 19:21

19:21 Jesus said to him, “If you wish to be perfect, go sell your possessions and give the money ²⁴  to the poor, and you will have treasure ²⁵  in heaven. Then come, follow me.”

Matius 20:8

20:8 When ²⁶  it was evening ²⁷  the owner of the vineyard said to his manager, ‘Call the workers and give the pay ²⁸  starting with the last hired until the first.’

Matius 21:23

The Authority of Jesus

21:23 Now after Jesus ²⁹  entered the temple courts, ³⁰  the chief priests and elders of the people came up to him as he was teaching and said, “By what authority ³¹  are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?”

Matius 23:13

23:13 “But woe to you, experts in the law ³²  and you Pharisees, hypocrites! ³³  You keep locking people out of the kingdom of heaven! ³⁴  For you neither enter nor permit those trying to enter to go in.

Matius 24:29

The Arrival of the Son of Man

24:29 “Immediately ³⁵  after the suffering ³⁶  of those days, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of heaven will be shaken. ³⁷ 

Matius 24:43

24:43 But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what time of night the thief ³⁸  was coming, he would have been alert and would not have let his house be broken into.

Matius 25:15

25:15 To ³⁹  one he gave five talents, ⁴⁰  to another two, and to another one, each according to his ability. Then he went on his journey.

Matius 26:26

The Lord’s Supper

26:26 While ⁴¹  they were eating, Jesus took bread, and after giving thanks he broke it, gave it to his disciples, and said, “Take, eat, this is my body.”

Matius 27:48

27:48 Immediately ⁴²  one of them ran and got a sponge, filled it with sour wine, ⁴³  put it on a stick, ⁴⁴  and gave it to him to drink.

Matius 28:9-10

28:9 But ⁴⁵  Jesus met them, saying, “Greetings!” They ⁴⁶  came to him, held on to his feet and worshiped him. 28:10 Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid. Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee. They will see me there.”

[2:8]  ¹ tn Here καί (kai) has not been translated.

[5:45]  ² tn Grk “be sons of your Father in heaven.” Here, however, the focus is not on attaining a relationship (becoming a child of God) but rather on being the kind of person who shares the characteristics of God himself (a frequent meaning of the Semitic idiom “son of”). See L&N 58.26.

[6:24]  ³ sn The contrast between hate and love here is rhetorical. The point is that one will choose the favorite if a choice has to be made.

[6:24]  ⁴ tn Or “and treat [the other] with contempt.”

[6:24]  ⁵ tn Grk “God and mammon.”

[6:24]  sn The term money is used to translate mammon, the Aramaic term for wealth or possessions. The point is not that money is inherently evil, but that it is often misused so that it is a means of evil; see 1 Tim 6:6-10, 17-19. God must be first, not money or possessions.

[7:6]  ⁶ tn Or “otherwise the latter will trample them under their feet and the former will turn around and tear you to pieces.” This verse is sometimes understood as a chiasm of the pattern a-b-b-a, in which the first and last clauses belong together (“dogs…turn around and tear you to pieces”) and the second and third clauses belong together (“pigs…trample them under their feet”).

[8:4]  ⁷ sn The command for silence was probably meant to last only until the cleansing took place with the priests and sought to prevent Jesus’ healings from becoming the central focus of the people’s reaction to him. See also 9:30, 12:16, 16:20, and 17:9 for other cases where Jesus asks for silence concerning him and his ministry.

[8:4]  ⁸ tn Grk “gift.”

[8:4]  ⁹ sn On the phrase bring the offering that Moses commanded see Lev 14:1-32.

[8:4]  ¹⁰ tn Or “as an indictment against them.” The pronoun αὐτοῖς (autoi") may be a dative of disadvantage.

[10:42]  ¹¹ tn Grk “Truly (ἀμήν, amhn), I say to you.”

[18:6]  ¹² tn The Greek term σκανδαλίζω (skandalizw), translated here “causes to sin” can also be translated “offends” or “causes to stumble.”

[18:6]  ¹³ tn Grk “the millstone of a donkey.” This refers to a large flat stone turned by a donkey in the process of grinding grain (BDAG 661 s.v. μύλος 2; L&N 7.68-69). The same term is used in the parallel account in Mark 9:42.

[18:6]  sn The punishment of drowning with a heavy weight attached is extremely gruesome and reflects Jesus’ views concerning those who cause others who believe in him to sin.

[18:6]  ¹⁴ tn The term translated “open” here (πελάγει, pelagei) refers to the open sea as opposed to a stretch of water near a coastline (BDAG 794 s.v. πέλαγος). A similar English expression would be “the high seas.”

[18:15]  ¹⁵ tn Here δέ (de) has not been translated. All the “if” clauses in this paragraph are third class conditions in Greek.

[18:15]  ¹⁶ tn The Greek term “brother” can mean “fellow believer” or “fellow Christian” (cf. BDAG 18 s.v. ἀδελφός 2.a) whether male or female. It can also refer to siblings, though here it is used in a broader sense to connote familial relationships within the family of God. Therefore, because of the familial connotations, “brother” has been retained in the translation here in preference to the more generic “fellow believer” (“fellow Christian” would be anachronistic in this context).

[18:15]  ¹⁷ tc ‡ The earliest and best witnesses lack “against you” after “if your brother sins.” It is quite possible that the shorter reading in these witnesses (א B, as well as 0281 ˹ 579 pc sa) occurred when scribes either intentionally changed the text (to make it more universal in application) or unintentionally changed the text (owing to the similar sound of the end of the verb ἁμαρτήσῃ [Jamarthsh] and the prepositional phrase εἰς σέ [eis se]). However, if the mss were normally copied by sight rather than by sound, especially in the early centuries of Christianity, such an unintentional change is not as likely for these mss. And since scribes normally added material rather than deleted it for intentional changes, on balance, the shorter reading appears to be original. NA²⁷ includes the words in brackets, indicating doubts as to their authenticity.

[18:15]  ¹⁸ tn Grk “go reprove him.”

[18:17]  ¹⁹ tn Here δέ (de) has not been translated.

[18:17]  ²⁰ tn Here δέ (de) has not been translated.

[18:17]  ²¹ tn Grk “let him be to you as.”

[18:17]  ²² tn Or “a pagan.”

[18:17]  ²³ sn To treat him like a Gentile or a tax collector means not to associate with such a person. See the note on tax collectors in 5:46.

[19:21]  ²⁴ tn The words “the money” are not in the Greek text, but are implied. Direct objects were often omitted in Greek when clear from the context.

[19:21]  ²⁵ sn The call for sacrifice comes with a promise of eternal reward: You will have treasure in heaven. Jesus’ call is a test to see how responsive the man is to God’s direction through him. Will he walk the path God’s agent calls him to walk? For a rich person who got it right, see Zacchaeus in Luke 19:1-10.

[20:8]  ²⁶ tn Here δέ (de) has not been translated.

[20:8]  ²⁷ sn That is, six o’clock in the evening, the hour to pay day laborers. See Lev 19:13b.

[20:8]  ²⁸ tc ‡ Most witnesses (including B D W Θ Ë^1,13 33^vid Ï latt sy) have αὐτοῖς (autois, “to them”) after ἀπόδος (apodos, “give the pay”), but this seems to be a motivated reading, clarifying the indirect object. The omission is supported by א C L Z 085 Or. Nevertheless, NA²⁷ includes the pronoun on the basis of the greater external attestation.

[21:23]  ²⁹ tn Grk “he.”

[21:23]  ³⁰ tn Grk “the temple.”

[21:23]  ³¹ tn On this phrase, see BDAG 844 s.v. ποῖος 2.a.γ.1

[23:13]  ³² tn Or “scribes.” See the note on the phrase “experts in the law” in 2:4.

[23:13]  ³³ tn Grk “Woe to you…because you…” The causal particle ὅτι (Joti) has not been translated here for rhetorical effect (and so throughout this chapter).

[23:13]  ³⁴ tn Grk “because you are closing the kingdom of heaven before people.”

[24:29]  ³⁵ tn Here δέ (de) has not been translated.

[24:29]  ³⁶ tn Traditionally, “tribulation.”

[24:29]  ³⁷ sn An allusion to Isa 13:10, 34:4 (LXX); Joel 2:10. The heavens were seen as the abode of heavenly forces, so their shaking indicates distress in the spiritual realm. Although some take the powers as a reference to bodies in the heavens (like stars and planets, “the heavenly bodies,” NIV) this is not as likely.

[24:43]  ³⁸ sn On Jesus pictured as a returning thief, see 1 Thess 5:2, 4; 2 Pet 3:10; Rev 3:3; 16:15.

[25:15]  ³⁹ tn Here καί (kai) has not been translated.

[25:15]  ⁴⁰ sn A talent was equal to 6000 denarii. See the note on this term in 18:24.

[26:26]  ⁴¹ tn Here δέ (de) has not been translated.

[27:48]  ⁴² tn Here καί (kai) has not been translated.

[27:48]  ⁴³ sn Sour wine refers to cheap wine that was called in Latin posca, a cheap vinegar wine diluted heavily with water. It was the drink of slaves and soldiers, and was probably there for the soldiers who had performed the crucifixion.

[27:48]  ⁴⁴ tn Grk “a reed.”

[28:9]  ⁴⁵ tn Grk “And behold.” Here καί (kai) has been translated as “but” to indicate that the return of the women from the tomb was interrupted by this appearance of Jesus. The Greek word ἰδού (idou) has not been translated because it has no exact English equivalent here, but adds interest and emphasis (BDAG 468 s.v. 1).

[28:9]  ⁴⁶ tn Here δέ (de) has not been translated.