Mazmur 45:13

45:13 The princess ¹  looks absolutely magnificent, ² 

decked out in pearls and clothed in a brocade trimmed with gold. ³ 

Mazmur 51:6

51:6 Look, ⁴  you desire ⁵  integrity in the inner man; ⁶ 

you want me to possess wisdom. ⁷ 

Matius 23:26

23:26 Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup, ⁸  so that the outside may become clean too!

Lukas 11:40

11:40 You fools! ⁹  Didn’t the one who made the outside make the inside as well? ¹⁰ 

Roma 2:29

2:29 but someone is a Jew who is one inwardly, and circumcision is of the heart ¹¹  by the Spirit ¹²  and not by the written code. ¹³  This person’s ¹⁴  praise is not from people but from God.

Roma 6:6

6:6 We know that ¹⁵  our old man was crucified with him so that the body of sin would no longer dominate us, ¹⁶  so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin.

Roma 7:22

7:22 For I delight in the law of God in my inner being.

Roma 7:2

7:2 For a married woman is bound by law to her husband as long as he lives, but if her ¹⁷  husband dies, she is released from the law of the marriage. ¹⁸ 

Kolose 4:16

4:16 And after ¹⁹  you have read this letter, have it read ²⁰  to the church of Laodicea. In turn, read the letter from Laodicea ²¹  as well.

Efesus 4:22-24

4:22 You were taught with reference to your former way of life to lay aside ²²  the old man who is being corrupted in accordance with deceitful desires, 4:23 to be renewed in the spirit of your mind, 4:24 and to put on the new man who has been created in God’s image ²³  – in righteousness and holiness that comes from truth. ²⁴ 

Kolose 3:3

3:3 for you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God.

Kolose 3:9-10

3:9 Do not lie to one another since you have put off the old man with its practices 3:10 and have been clothed with the new man ²⁵  that is being renewed in knowledge according to the image of the one who created it.

[45:13]  ¹ tn Heb “[the] daughter of a king.”

[45:13]  ² tn Heb “[is] completely glorious.”

[45:13]  ³ tc Heb “within, from settings of gold, her clothing.” The Hebrew term פְּנִימָה (pÿnimah, “within”), if retained, would go with the preceding line and perhaps refer to the bride being “within” the palace or her bridal chamber (cf. NIV, NRSV). Since the next two lines refer to her attire (see also v. 9b), it is preferable to emend the form to פְּנִינִיהָּ (“her pearls”) or to פְּנִינִים (“pearls”). The mem (מ) prefixed to “settings” is probably dittographic.

[51:6]  ⁴ sn The juxtaposition of two occurrences of “look” in vv. 5-6 draws attention to the sharp contrast between the sinful reality of the psalmist’s condition and the lofty ideal God has for him.

[51:6]  ⁵ tn The perfect is used in a generalizing sense here.

[51:6]  ⁶ tn Heb “in the covered [places],” i.e., in the inner man.

[51:6]  ⁷ tn Heb “in the secret [place] wisdom you cause me to know.” The Hiphil verbal form is causative, while the imperfect is used in a modal sense to indicate God’s desire (note the parallel verb “desire”).

[51:6]  sn You want me to possess wisdom. Here “wisdom” does not mean “intelligence” or “learning,” but refers to moral insight and skill.

[23:26]  ⁸ tc A very difficult textual problem is found here. The most important Alexandrian and Byzantine, as well as significant Western, witnesses (א B C L W 0102 0281 ˹³ 33 Ï lat co) have “and the dish” (καὶ τῆς παροψίδος, kai th" paroyido") after “cup,” while few important witnesses (D Θ Ë¹ 700 and some versional and patristic authorities) omit the phrase. On the one hand, scribes sometimes tended to eliminate redundancy; since “and the dish” is already present in v. 25, it may have been deleted in v. 26 by well-meaning scribes. On the other hand, as B. M. Metzger notes, the singular pronoun αὐτοῦ (autou, “its”) with τὸ ἐκτός (to ekto", “the outside”) in some of the same witnesses that have the longer reading (viz., B* ˹³ al) hints that their archetype lacked the words (TCGNT 50). Further, scribes would be motivated both to add the phrase from v. 25 and to change αὐτοῦ to the plural pronoun αὐτῶν (aujtwn, “their”). Although the external evidence for the shorter reading is not compelling in itself, combined with these two prongs of internal evidence, it is to be slightly preferred.

[11:40]  ⁹ sn You fools is a rebuke which in the OT refers to someone who is blind to God (Ps 14:1, 53:1; 92:6; Prov 6:12).

[11:40]  ¹⁰ tn The question includes a Greek particle, οὐ (ou), that expects a positive reply. God, the maker of both, is concerned for what is both inside and outside.

[2:29]  ¹¹ sn On circumcision is of the heart see Lev 26:41; Deut 10:16; Jer 4:4; Ezek 44:9.

[2:29]  ¹² tn Some have taken the phrase ἐν πνεύματι (en pneumati, “by/in [the] S/spirit”) not as a reference to the Holy Spirit, but referring to circumcision as “spiritual and not literal” (RSV).

[2:29]  ¹³ tn Grk “letter.”

[2:29]  ¹⁴ tn Grk “whose.” The relative pronoun has been replaced by the phrase “this person’s” and, because of the length and complexity of the Greek sentence, a new sentence was started in the translation.

[6:6]  ¹⁵ tn Grk “knowing this, that.” Because of the length and complexity of the Greek sentence, a new sentence was started here in the translation.

[6:6]  ¹⁶ tn Grk “may be rendered ineffective, inoperative,” or possibly “may be destroyed.” The term καταργέω (katargew) has various nuances. In Rom 7:2 the wife whose husband has died is freed from the law (i.e., the law of marriage no longer has any power over her, in spite of what she may feel). A similar point seems to be made here (note v. 7).

[7:2]  ¹⁷ tn Grk “the,” with the article used as a possessive pronoun (ExSyn 215).

[7:2]  ¹⁸ tn Grk “husband.”

[7:2]  sn Paul’s example of the married woman and the law of the marriage illustrates that death frees a person from obligation to the law. Thus, in spiritual terms, a person who has died to what controlled us (v. 6) has been released from the law to serve God in the new life produced by the Spirit.

[4:16]  ¹⁹ tn Grk “when.”

[4:16]  ²⁰ tn The construction beginning with the imperative ποιήσατε ἵνα…ἀναγνωσθῇ (poihsate Jina…anagnwsqh) should be translated as “have it read” where the conjunction ἵνα functions to mark off its clause as the direct object of the imperative ποιήσατε. The content of the clause (“reading the letter”) is what Paul commands with the imperative ποιήσατε. Thus the translation “have it read” has been used here.

[4:16]  ²¹ sn This letter is otherwise unknown, but some have suggested that it is the letter known today as Ephesians.

[4:22]  ²² tn An alternative rendering for the infinitives in vv. 22-24 (“to lay aside… to be renewed… to put on”) is “that you have laid aside… that you are being renewed… that you have put on.” The three infinitives of vv. 22 (ἀποθέσθαι, apoqesqai), 23 (ἀνανεοῦσθαι, ananeousqai), and 24 (ἐνδύσασθαι, endusasqai), form part of an indirect discourse clause; they constitute the teaching given to the believers addressed in the letter. The problem in translation is that one cannot be absolutely certain whether they go back to indicatives in the original statement (i.e., “you have put off”) or imperatives (i.e., “put off!”). Every other occurrence of an aorist infinitive in indirect discourse in the NT goes back to an imperative, but in all of these examples the indirect discourse is introduced by a verb that implies a command. The verb διδάσκω (didaskw) in the corpus Paulinum may be used to relate the indicatives of the faith as well as the imperatives. This translation implies that the infinitives go back to imperatives, though the alternate view that they refer back to indicatives is also a plausible interpretation. For further discussion, see ExSyn 605.

[4:24]  ²³ tn Or “in God’s likeness.” Grk “according to God.” The preposition κατά used here denotes a measure of similarity or equality (BDAG 513 s.v. B.5.b.α).

[4:24]  ²⁴ tn Or “in righteousness and holiness which is based on truth” or “originated from truth.”

[3:10]  ²⁵ sn Put off all such things. The commands in vv. 8-9 are based on two reasons given in vv. 9-10 – reasons which are expressed in terms of a metaphor about clothing oneself. Paul says that they have put off the old man and have put on the new man. Two things need to be discussed in reference to Paul’s statement. (1) What is the meaning of the clothing imagery (i.e., the “have put off” and “have been clothed”)? (2) What is the meaning of the old man and the new man? Though some commentators understand the participles “have put off” (v. 9) and “have been clothed” (v. 10) as imperatives (i.e., “put off!” and “put on!”), this use of participles is extremely rare in the NT and thus unlikely here. It is better to take them as having the semantic force of indicatives, and thus they give an explanation of what had happened to the Colossians at the time of their conversion – they had taken off the old man and put on the new when they trusted in Christ (cf. 1:4). While it is difficult to say for certain what the background to Paul’s “clothing” metaphor might be (whether it is primarily Jewish and comes from the OT, or primarily Gentile and comes from some facet of the Greco-Roman religious milieu), it is nonetheless clear, on the basis of Paul’s usage of the expression, that the old man refers to man as he is in Adam and dominated by sin (cf. Rom 6:6; Eph 4:22), while the new man refers to the Christian whose new sphere of existence is in Christ. Though the metaphor of clothing oneself primarily reflects outward actions, there is a distinct inward aspect to it, as the rest of v. 10 indicates: being renewed in knowledge according to the image of the one who created it. Paul’s point, then, is that Christians should take off their dirty clothing (inappropriate behavior) and put on clean clothing (behavior consistent with knowing Christ) because this has already been accomplished in a positional sense at the time of their conversion (cf. Gal 3:27 with Rom 13:14).