Mazmur 17:14

17:14 Lord, use your power to deliver me from these murderers, ¹ 

from the murderers of this world! ² 

They enjoy prosperity; ³ 

you overwhelm them with the riches they desire. ⁴ 

They have many children,

and leave their wealth to their offspring. ⁵ 

Yeremia 23:10

23:10 For the land is full of people unfaithful to him. ⁶ 

They live wicked lives and they misuse their power. ⁷ 

So the land is dried up ⁸  because it is under his curse. ⁹ 

The pastures in the wilderness are withered.

Lukas 16:8

16:8 The ¹⁰  master commended the dishonest ¹¹  manager because he acted shrewdly. ¹²  For the people ¹³  of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their contemporaries ¹⁴  than the people ¹⁵  of light.

Yohanes 7:7

7:7 The world cannot hate you, but it hates me, because I am testifying about it that its deeds are evil.

Yohanes 8:23

8:23 Jesus replied, ¹⁶  “You people ¹⁷  are from below; I am from above. You people are from this world; I am not from this world.

Yohanes 15:19

15:19 If you belonged to the world, ¹⁸  the world would love you as its own. ¹⁹  However, because you do not belong to the world, ²⁰  but I chose you out of the world, for this reason ²¹  the world hates you. ²² 

Roma 12:2

12:2 Do not be conformed ²³  to this present world, ²⁴  but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may test and approve ²⁵  what is the will of God – what is good and well-pleasing and perfect.

Roma 12:1

Consecration of the Believer’s Life

12:1 Therefore I exhort you, brothers and sisters, ²⁶  by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a sacrifice – alive, holy, and pleasing to God ²⁷  – which is your reasonable service.

Kolose 1:10

1:10 so that you may live ²⁸  worthily of the Lord and please him in all respects ²⁹  – bearing fruit in every good deed, growing in the knowledge of God,

Galatia 1:4

1:4 who gave himself for our sins to rescue us from this present evil age according to the will of our God and Father,

Galatia 1:2

1:2 and all the brothers with me, to the churches of Galatia.

Titus 1:10

1:10 For there are many ³⁰  rebellious people, idle talkers, and deceivers, especially those with Jewish connections, ³¹ 

Yakobus 1:7

1:7 For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord,

Yakobus 4:4

4:4 Adulterers, do you not know that friendship with the world means hostility toward God? ³²  So whoever decides to be the world’s friend makes himself God’s enemy.

Yakobus 4:1

Passions and Pride

4:1 Where do the conflicts and where ³³  do the quarrels among you come from? Is it not from this, ³⁴  from your passions that battle inside you? ³⁵ 

Yohanes 2:15-17

2:15 So he made a whip of cords ³⁶  and drove them all out of the temple courts, ³⁷  with the sheep and the oxen. He scattered the coins of the money changers ³⁸  and overturned their tables. 2:16 To those who sold the doves he said, “Take these things away from here! Do not make ³⁹  my Father’s house a marketplace!” ⁴⁰  2:17 His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal ⁴¹  for your house will devour me.” ⁴² 

Yohanes 5:4

5:4 [[EMPTY]] ⁴³ 

[17:14]  ¹ tc Heb “from men [by] your hand, Lord.” The translation assumes an emendation (both here and in the following line) of מִמְתִים (mimtim, “from men”) to מִמְמִתִים (mimmitim, “from those who kill”). For other uses of the plural form of the Hiphil participle of מוּת (mut, “die”), see 2 Kgs 17:26 (used with lions as subject), Job 33:22 (apparently referring to the agents of death), and Jer 26:15 (used of those seeking Jeremiah’s life).

[17:14]  ² tn Heb “from men, from [the] world.” On the emendation of “men” to “murderers,” see the preceding note on the word “murderers.”

[17:14]  ³ tn Heb “their portion, in life.”

[17:14]  ⁴ tn Heb “and [with] your treasures you fill their belly.”

[17:14]  sn You overwhelm them with the riches they desire. The psalmist is not accusing God of being unjust; he is simply observing that the wicked often prosper and that God is the ultimate source of all blessings that human beings enjoy (see Matt 5:45). When the wicked are ungrateful for God’s blessings, they become even more culpable and deserving of judgment. So this description of the wicked actually supports the psalmist’s appeal for deliverance. God should rescue him because he is innocent (see vv. 3-5) and because the wicked, though blessed abundantly by God, still have the audacity to attack God’s people.

[17:14]  ⁵ tn Heb “they are satisfied [with] sons and leave their abundance to their children.”

[23:10]  ⁶ tn Heb “adulterers.” But spiritual adultery is clearly meant as also in 3:8-9; 9:2, and probably also 5:7.

[23:10]  ⁷ tn For the word translated “They live…lives” see usage in Jer 8:6. For the idea of “misusing” their power (Heb “their power is not right” i.e., used in the wrong way) see 2 Kgs 7:9; 17:9. In the original text this line (really two lines in the Hebrew poetry) are at the end of the verse. However, this places the antecedent too far away and could lead to confusion. The lines have been rearranged to avoid such confusion.

[23:10]  ⁸ tn For the use of this verb see 12:4 and the note there.

[23:10]  ⁹ tc The translation follows the majority of Hebrew mss (מֵאָלָה, me’alah) rather than the Greek and Syriac version and a few Hebrew mss which read “because of these” (מֵאֵלֶּה [me’elleh], referring to the people unfaithful to him).

[23:10]  sn The curse is, of course, the covenant curse. See Deut 29:20-21 (29:19-20 HT) and for the specific curse see Deut 28:23-24. The curse is appropriate since their “adultery” lay in attributing their fertility to the god Baal (see Hos 2:9-13 (2:11-15 HT) and violating the covenant (see Hos 4:1-3).

[16:8]  ¹⁰ tn Grk “And the.” Here καί (kai) has not been translated because of differences between Greek and English style.

[16:8]  ¹¹ sn Is the manager dishonest because of what he just did? Or is it a reference to what he had done earlier, described in v. 1? This is a difficult question, but it seems unlikely that the master, having fired the man for prior dishonesty, would now commend those same actions. It would also be unusual for Jesus to make that point of the story the example. Thus it is more likely the reference to dishonesty goes back to the earliest events, while the commendation is for the cleverness of the former manager reflected in vv. 5-7.

[16:8]  ¹² sn Where this parable ends is debated: Does it conclude with v. 7, after v. 8a, after v. 8b, or after v. 9? Verse 8a looks as if it is still part of the story, with its clear reference to the manager, while 8b looks like Jesus’ application, since its remarks are more general. So it is most likely the parable stops after v. 8a.

[16:8]  ¹³ tn Grk “sons” (an idiom).

[16:8]  ¹⁴ tn Grk “with their own generation.”

[16:8]  ¹⁵ tn Grk “sons.” Here the phrase “sons of light” is a reference to the righteous. The point is that those of the world often think ahead about consequences better than the righteous do.

[8:23]  ¹⁶ tn Grk “And he said to them.”

[8:23]  ¹⁷ tn The word “people” is supplied in English to clarify the plural Greek pronoun and verb.

[15:19]  ¹⁸ tn Grk “if you were of the world.”

[15:19]  ¹⁹ tn The words “you as” are not in the original but are supplied for clarity.

[15:19]  ²⁰ tn Grk “because you are not of the world.”

[15:19]  ²¹ tn Or “world, therefore.”

[15:19]  ²² sn I chose you out of the world…the world hates you. Two themes are brought together here. In 8:23 Jesus had distinguished himself from the world in addressing his Jewish opponents: “You are from below, I am from above; you are of this world, I am not of this world.” In 15:16 Jesus told the disciples “You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you.” Now Jesus has united these two ideas as he informs the disciples that he has chosen them out of the world. While the disciples will still be “in” the world after Jesus has departed, they will not belong to it, and Jesus prays later in John 17:15-16 to the Father, “I do not ask you to take them out of the world, but to keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.” The same theme also occurs in 1 John 4:5-6: “They are from the world; therefore they speak as from the world, and the world listens to them. We are from God; he who knows God listens to us; he who is not from God does not listen to us.” Thus the basic reason why the world hates the disciples (as it hated Jesus before them) is because they are not of the world. They are born from above, and are not of the world. For this reason the world hates them.

[12:2]  ²³ tn Although συσχηματίζεσθε (suschmatizesqe) could be either a passive or middle, the passive is more likely since it would otherwise have to be a direct middle (“conform yourselves”) and, as such, would be quite rare for NT Greek. It is very telling that being “conformed” to the present world is viewed as a passive notion, for it may suggest that it happens, in part, subconsciously. At the same time, the passive could well be a “permissive passive,” suggesting that there may be some consciousness of the conformity taking place. Most likely, it is a combination of both.

[12:2]  ²⁴ tn Grk “to this age.”

[12:2]  ²⁵ sn The verb translated test and approve (δοκιμάζω, dokimazw) carries the sense of “test with a positive outcome,” “test so as to approve.”

[12:1]  ²⁶ tn Grk “brothers.” See note on the phrase “brothers and sisters” in 1:13.

[12:1]  ²⁷ tn The participle and two adjectives “alive, holy, and pleasing to God” are taken as predicates in relation to “sacrifice,” making the exhortation more emphatic. See ExSyn 618-19.

[12:1]  sn Taken as predicate adjectives, the terms alive, holy, and pleasing are showing how unusual is the sacrifice that believers can now offer, for OT sacrifices were dead. As has often been quipped about this text, “The problem with living sacrifices is that they keep crawling off the altar.”

[1:10]  ²⁸ tn The infinitive περιπατῆσαι (peripathsai, “to walk, to live, to live one’s life”) is best taken as an infinitive of purpose related to “praying” (προσευχόμενοι, proseucomenoi) and “asking” (αἰτούμενοι, aitoumenoi) in v. 9 and is thus translated as “that you may live.”

[1:10]  ²⁹ tn BDAG 129 s.v. ἀρεσκεία states that ἀρεσκείαν (areskeian) refers to a “desire to please εἰς πᾶσαν ἀ. to please (the Lord) in all respects Col 1:10.”

[1:10]  ³⁰ tc ‡ The earliest and best mss lack καί (kai) after πολλοί (polloi; so א A C P 088 81 104 365 614 629 630 al sy co), though the conjunction is found in several significant witnesses, chiefly of the Western and Byzantine texts (D F G I Ψ 33 1739 1881 Ï lat). Although it is possible that some scribes omitted the word, thinking it was superfluous, it is also possible that others added the conjunction for clarification. Judging by the pedigree of the witnesses and the inconclusiveness of the internal evidence, the shorter reading is considered to be most likely original. NA²⁷ puts the conjunction in brackets, indicating some doubts as to its authenticity.

[1:10]  ³¹ tn Grk “those of the circumcision.” Some translations take this to refer to Jewish converts to Christianity (cf. NAB “Jewish Christians”; TEV “converts from Judaism”; CEV “Jewish followers”) while others are less clear (cf. NLT “those who insist on circumcision for salvation”).

[4:4]  ³² tn Grk “is hostility toward God.”

[4:1]  ³³ tn The word “where” is repeated in Greek for emphasis.

[4:1]  ³⁴ tn Grk “from here.”

[4:1]  ³⁵ tn Grk “in your members [i.e., parts of the body].”

[2:15]  ³⁶ tc Several witnesses, two of which are quite ancient (Ì^66,75 L N ˹ 33 565 892 1241 al lat), have ὡς (Jws, “like”) before φραγέλλιον (fragellion, “whip”). A decision based on external evidence would be difficult to make because the shorter reading also has excellent witnesses, as well as the majority, on its side (א A B Θ Ψ Ë¹³ Ï co). Internal evidence, though, leans toward the shorter reading. Scribes tended to add to the text, and the addition of ὡς here clearly softens the assertion of the evangelist: Instead of making a whip of cords, Jesus made “[something] like a whip of cords.”

[2:15]  ³⁷ tn Grk “the temple.”

[2:15]  ³⁸ sn Because of the imperial Roman portraits they carried, Roman denarii and Attic drachmas were not permitted to be used in paying the half-shekel temple-tax (the Jews considered the portraits idolatrous). The money changers exchanged these coins for legal Tyrian coinage at a small profit.

[2:16]  ³⁹ tn Or (perhaps) “Stop making.”

[2:16]  ⁴⁰ tn Or “a house of merchants” (an allusion to Zech 14:21).

[2:16]  sn A marketplace. Zech 14:20-21, in context, is clearly a picture of the messianic kingdom. The Hebrew word translated “Canaanite” may also be translated “merchant” or “trader.” Read in this light, Zech 14:21 states that there will be no merchant in the house of the Lord in that day (the day of the Lord, at the establishment of the messianic kingdom). And what would Jesus’ words (and actions) in cleansing the temple have suggested to the observers? That Jesus was fulfilling messianic expectations would have been obvious – especially to the disciples, who had just seen the miracle at Cana with all its messianic implications.

[2:17]  ⁴¹ tn Or “Fervent devotion to your house.”

[2:17]  ⁴² sn A quotation from Ps 69:9.

[5:4]  ⁴³ tc The majority of later mss (C³ Θ Ψ 078 Ë^1,13 Ï) add the following to 5:3: “waiting for the moving of the water. 5:4 For an angel of the Lord went down and stirred up the water at certain times. Whoever first stepped in after the stirring of the water was healed from whatever disease which he suffered.” Other mss include only v. 3b (A^c D 33 lat) or v. 4 (A L it). Few textual scholars today would accept the authenticity of any portion of vv. 3b-4, for they are not found in the earliest and best witnesses (Ì^66,75 א B C* T pc co), they include un-Johannine vocabulary and syntax, several of the mss that include the verses mark them as spurious (with an asterisk or obelisk), and because there is a great amount of textual diversity among the witnesses that do include the verses. The present translation follows NA²⁷ in omitting the verse number, a procedure also followed by a number of other modern translations.