Mazmur 119:4-5

119:4 You demand that your precepts

be carefully kept. ¹ 

119:5 If only I were predisposed ² 

to keep your statutes!

Mazmur 119:24-25

119:24 Yes, I find delight in your rules;

they give me guidance. ³ 

ד (Dalet)

119:25 I collapse in the dirt. ⁴ 

Revive me with your word! ⁵ 

Mazmur 119:32

119:32 I run along the path of your commands,

for you enable me to do so. ⁶ 

Mazmur 119:35-37

119:35 Guide me ⁷  in the path of your commands,

for I delight to walk in it. ⁸ 

119:36 Give me a desire for your rules, ⁹ 

rather than for wealth gained unjustly. ¹⁰ 

119:37 Turn my eyes away from what is worthless! ¹¹ 

Revive me with your word! ¹² 

Mazmur 119:115

119:115 Turn away from me, you evil men,

so that I can observe ¹³  the commands of my God. ¹⁴ 

Mazmur 119:117

119:117 Support me, so that I will be delivered.

Then I will focus ¹⁵  on your statutes continually.

Mazmur 119:1

Psalm 119 ¹⁶ 

א (Alef)

119:1 How blessed are those whose actions are blameless, ¹⁷ 

who obey ¹⁸  the law of the Lord.

Yesaya 26:8-9

26:8 Yes, as your judgments unfold, ¹⁹ 

O Lord, we wait for you.

We desire your fame and reputation to grow. ²⁰ 

26:9 I ²¹  look for ²²  you during the night,

my spirit within me seeks you at dawn,

for when your judgments come upon the earth,

those who live in the world learn about justice. ²³ 

Roma 7:18-25

7:18 For I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my flesh. For I want to do the good, but I cannot do it. ²⁴  7:19 For I do not do the good I want, but I do the very evil I do not want! 7:20 Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer me doing it but sin that lives in me.

7:21 So, I find the law that when I want to do good, evil is present with me. 7:22 For I delight in the law of God in my inner being. 7:23 But I see a different law in my members waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that is in my members. 7:24 Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? 7:25 Thanks be ²⁵  to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, ²⁶  I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but ²⁷  with my flesh I serve ²⁸  the law of sin.

Roma 8:3

8:3 For God achieved what the law could not do because ²⁹  it was weakened through the flesh. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and concerning sin, he condemned sin in the flesh,

Roma 8:1

The Believer’s Relationship to the Holy Spirit

8:1 There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. ³⁰ 

Kolose 1:27

1:27 God wanted to make known to them the glorious ³¹  riches of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.

Galatia 5:16-17

5:16 But I say, live ³²  by the Spirit and you will not carry out the desires of the flesh. ³³  5:17 For the flesh has desires that are opposed to the Spirit, and the Spirit has desires ³⁴  that are opposed to the flesh, for these are in opposition to ³⁵  each other, so that you cannot do what you want.

Galatia 5:24

5:24 Now those who belong to Christ ³⁶  have crucified the flesh ³⁷  with its passions ³⁸  and desires.

Filipi 3:12-14

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. ³⁹  3:13 Brothers and sisters, ⁴⁰  I do not consider myself to have attained this. Instead I am single-minded: ⁴¹  Forgetting the things that are behind and reaching out for the things that are ahead, 3:14 with this goal in mind, ⁴²  I strive toward the prize of the upward call of God ⁴³  in Christ Jesus.

[119:4]  ¹ tn Heb “you, you commanded your precepts, to keep, very much.”

[119:5]  ² tn Heb “if only my ways were established.”

[119:24]  ³ tn Heb “men of my counsel.” That is, God’s rules are like advisers to the psalmist, for they teach him how to live in a godly manner that refutes the accusations of his enemies.

[119:25]  ⁴ tn Heb “my soul clings to the dirt.” The Hebrew term נֶפֶשׁ (nefesh, “being; soul”) with a pronominal suffix is often equivalent to a pronoun, especially in poetry (see BDB 660 s.v. נֶפֶשׁ 4.a).

[119:25]  ⁵ tn Heb “according to your word.” Many medieval Hebrew mss read the plural “your words.”

[119:32]  ⁶ tn Heb “for you make wide my heart.” The “heart” is viewed here as the seat of the psalmist’s volition and understanding. The Lord gives the psalmist the desire and moral understanding that are foundational to the willing obedience depicted metaphorically in the preceding line. In Isa 60:5 the expression “your heart will be wide” means “your heart will swell with pride,” but here the nuance appears to be different.

[119:35]  ⁷ tn Or “make me walk.”

[119:35]  ⁸ tn Heb “for in it I delight.”

[119:36]  ⁹ tn Heb “turn my heart to your rules.”

[119:36]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “and not unjust gain.”

[119:37]  ¹¹ tn Heb “Make my eyes pass by from looking at what is worthless.”

[119:37]  ¹² tn Heb “by your word.”

[119:115]  ¹³ tn The cohortative verbal form with vav (ו) conjunctive indicates purpose/result after the preceding imperative.

[119:115]  ¹⁴ tn The psalmist has already declared that he observes God’s commands despite persecution, so here the idea must be “so that I might observe the commands of my God unhindered by threats.”

[119:117]  ¹⁵ tn Or “and that I might focus.” The two cohortatives with vav (ו) conjunctive indicate purpose/result after the imperative at the beginning of the verse.

[119:1]  ¹⁶ sn Psalm 119. The psalmist celebrates God’s law and the guidance it provides his people. He expresses his desire to know God’s law thoroughly so that he might experience the blessings that come to those who obey it. This lengthy psalm exhibits an elaborate acrostic pattern. The psalm is divided into twenty-two sections (corresponding to the letters of the Hebrew alphabet), each of which is comprised of eight verses. Each of the verses in the first section (vv. 1-8) begins with the letter alef (א), the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet. This pattern continues throughout the psalm as each new section highlights a successive letter of the alphabet. Each verse in section two (vv. 9-16) begins with the second letter of the alphabet, each verse in section three (vv. 17-24) with the third letter, etc. This rigid pattern creates a sense of order and completeness and may have facilitated memorization.

[119:1]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “[Oh] the happiness of those who are blameless of way.”

[119:1]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “walk in.”

[26:8]  ¹⁹ tn The Hebrew text has, “yes, the way of your judgments.” The translation assumes that “way” is related to the verb “we wait” as an adverbial accusative (“in the way of your judgments we wait”). מִשְׁפָּטֶיךָ (mishpatekha, “your judgments”) could refer to the Lord’s commandments, in which case one might translate, “as we obey your commands.” However, in verse 9 the same form refers to divine acts of judgment on evildoers.

[26:8]  ²⁰ tn Heb “your name and your remembrance [is] the desire of [our?] being.”

[26:9]  ²¹ tn Heb “with my soul I.” This is a figure for the speaker himself (“I”).

[26:9]  ²² tn Or “long for, desire.” The speaker acknowledges that he is eager to see God come in judgment (see vv. 8, 9b).

[26:9]  ²³ tn The translation understands צֶדֶק (tsedeq) in the sense of “justice,” but it is possible that it carries the nuance “righteousness,” in which case one might translate, “those who live in the world learn to live in a righteous manner” (cf. NCV).

[7:18]  ²⁴ tn Grk “For to wish is present in/with me, but not to do it.”

[7:25]  ²⁵ tc ‡ Most mss (א* A 1739 1881 Ï sy) read “I give thanks to God” rather than “Now thanks be to God” (א¹ [B] Ψ 33 81 104 365 1506 pc), the reading of NA²⁷. The reading with the verb (εὐχαριστῶ τῷ θεῷ, eucaristw tw qew) possibly arose from a transcriptional error in which several letters were doubled (TCGNT 455). The conjunction δέ (de, “now”) is included in some mss as well (א¹ Ψ 33 81 104 365 1506 pc), but it should probably not be considered original. The ms support for the omission of δέ is both excellent and widespread (א* A B D 1739 1881 Ï lat sy), and its addition can be explained as an insertion to smooth out the transition between v. 24 and 25.

[7:25]  ²⁶ tn There is a double connective here that cannot be easily preserved in English: “consequently therefore,” emphasizing the conclusion of what he has been arguing.

[7:25]  ²⁷ tn Greek emphasizes the contrast between these two clauses more than can be easily expressed in English.

[7:25]  ²⁸ tn The words “I serve” have been repeated here for clarity.

[8:3]  ²⁹ tn Grk “in that.”

[8:1]  ³⁰ tc The earliest and best witnesses of the Alexandrian and Western texts, as well as a few others (א* B D* F G 6 1506 1739 1881 pc co), have no additional words for v. 1. Later scribes (A D¹ Ψ 81 365 629 pc vg) added the words μὴ κατὰ σάρκα περιπατοῦσιν (mh kata sarka peripatousin, “who do not walk according to the flesh”), while even later ones (א² D² 33^vid Ï) added ἀλλὰ κατὰ πνεῦμα (alla kata pneuma, “but [who do walk] according to the Spirit”). Both the external evidence and the internal evidence are compelling for the shortest reading. The scribes were evidently motivated to add such qualifications (interpolated from v. 4) to insulate Paul’s gospel from charges that it was characterized too much by grace. The KJV follows the longest reading found in Ï.

[1:27]  ³¹ tn The genitive noun τῆς δόξης (ths doxhs) is an attributive genitive and has therefore been translated as “glorious riches.”

[5:16]  ³² tn Grk “walk” (a common NT idiom for how one conducts one’s life or how one behaves).

[5:16]  ³³ tn On the term “flesh” (once in this verse and twice in v. 17) see the note on the same word in Gal 5:13.

[5:17]  ³⁴ tn The words “has desires” do not occur in the Greek text a second time, but are repeated in the translation for clarity.

[5:17]  ³⁵ tn Or “are hostile toward” (L&N 39.1).

[5:24]  ³⁶ tc ‡ Some mss (א A B C P Ψ 0122¹ 0278 33 1175 1739 pc co) read “Christ Jesus” here, while many significant ones (Ì⁴⁶ D F G 0122*^,2 latt sy), as well as the Byzantine text, lack “Jesus.” The Byzantine text is especially not prone to omit the name “Jesus”; that it does so here argues for the authenticity of the shorter reading (for similar instances of probably authentic Byzantine shorter readings, see Matt 24:36 and Phil 1:14; cf. also W.-H. J. Wu, “A Systematic Analysis of the Shorter Readings in the Byzantine Text of the Synoptic Gospels” [Ph.D. diss., Dallas Theological Seminary, 2002]). On the strength of the alignment of Ì⁴⁶ with the Western and Byzantine texttypes, the shorter reading is preferred. NA²⁷ includes the word in brackets, indicating doubts as to its authenticity.

[5:24]  ³⁷ tn See the note on the word “flesh” in Gal 5:13.

[5:24]  ³⁸ tn The Greek term παθήμασιν (paqhmasin, translated “passions”) refers to strong physical desires, especially of a sexual nature (L&N 25.30).

[3:12]  ³⁹ 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]  ⁴⁰ tn Grk “brothers.” See note on the phrase “brothers and sisters” in 1:12.

[3:13]  ⁴¹ tn Grk “But this one thing (I do).”

[3:14]  ⁴² tn Grk “according to the goal.”

[3:14]  ⁴³ tn Grk “prize, namely, the heavenly calling of God.”