Ulangan 4:37

4:37 Moreover, because he loved ¹  your ancestors, he chose their ²  descendants who followed them and personally brought you out of Egypt with his great power

Ulangan 10:15

10:15 However, only to your ancestors did he ³  show his loving favor, ⁴  and he chose you, their descendants, ⁵  from all peoples – as is apparent today.

Ulangan 10:1

The Opportunity to Begin Again

10:1 At that same time the Lord said to me, “Carve out for yourself two stone tablets like the first ones and come up the mountain to me; also make for yourself a wooden ark. ⁶ 

1 Samuel 20:14-17

20:14 While I am still alive, extend to me the loyalty of the Lord, or else I will die! 20:15 Don’t ever cut off your loyalty to my family, not even when the Lord has cut off every one of David’s enemies from the face of the earth 20:16 and called David’s enemies to account.” So Jonathan made a covenant ⁷  with the house of David. ⁸  20:17 Jonathan once again took an oath with David, because he loved him. In fact Jonathan loved him as much as he did his own life. ⁹ 

Matius 5:44-45

5:44 But I say to you, love your enemy and ¹⁰  pray for those who persecute you, 5:45 so that you may be like ¹¹  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.

Lukas 6:36

6:36 Be merciful, ¹²  just as your Father is merciful.

Titus 3:3-4

3:3 For we too were once foolish, disobedient, misled, enslaved to various passions and desires, spending our lives in evil and envy, hateful and hating one another. 3:4 ¹³  But “when the kindness of God our Savior and his love for mankind appeared,

[4:37]  ¹ tn The concept of love here is not primarily that of emotional affection but of commitment or devotion. This verse suggests that God chose Israel to be his special people because he loved the patriarchs (Abraham, Isaac, Jacob) and had promised to bless their descendants. See as well Deut 7:7-9.

[4:37]  ² tc The LXX, Smr, Syriac, Targum, and Vulgate read a third person masculine plural suffix for the MT’s 3rd person masculine singular, “his descendants.” Cf. Deut 10:15. Quite likely the MT should be emended in this instance.

[10:15]  ³ tn Heb “the Lord.” See note on “he” in 10:4.

[10:15]  ⁴ tn Heb “take delight to love.” Here again the verb אָהַב (’ahav, “love”), juxtaposed with בָחַר (bakhar, “choose”), is a term in covenant contexts that describes the Lord’s initiative in calling the patriarchal ancestors to be the founders of a people special to him (cf. the note on the word “loved” in Deut 4:37).

[10:15]  ⁵ tn The Hebrew text includes “after them,” but it is redundant in English style and has not been included in the translation.

[10:1]  ⁶ tn Or “chest” (so NIV, CEV); NLT “sacred chest”; TEV “wooden box.” This chest was made of acacia wood; it is later known as the ark of the covenant.

[20:16]  ⁷ tn Heb “cut.” The object of the verb (“covenant”) must be supplied.

[20:16]  ⁸ tn The word order is different in the Hebrew text, which reads “and Jonathan cut with the house of David, and the Lord will seek from the hand of the enemies of David.” The translation assumes that the main clauses of the verse have been accidentally transposed in the course of transmission. The first part of the verse (as it stands in MT) belongs with v. 17, while the second part of the verse actually continues v. 15.

[20:17]  ⁹ tn Heb “for [with] the love of his [own] life he loved him.”

[5:44]  ¹⁰ tc Most mss ([D] L [W] Θ Ë¹³ 33 Ï lat) read “bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who mistreat you,” before “those who persecute you.” But this is surely a motivated reading, importing the longer form of this aphorism from Luke 6:27-28. The shorter text is found in א B ˹ pc sa, as well as several fathers and versional witnesses.

[5:45]  ¹¹ 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.

[6:36]  ¹² sn Merciful is a characteristic of God often noted in the OT: Exod 34:6; Deut 4:31; Joel 2:31; Jonah 4:2; 2 Sam 24:14. This remark also echoes the more common OT statements like Lev 19:2 or Deut 18:13: “you must be holy as I am holy.”

[3:4]  ¹³ tn Verses 4-7 are set as poetry in NA²⁶/NA²⁷. These verses probably constitute the referent of the expression “this saying” in v. 8.