Matthew 20:12-15
20:12 saying, ‘These last fellows worked one hour, and you have made them equal to us who bore the hardship and burning heat of the day.’
20:13 And the landowner 1 replied to one of them, 2 ‘Friend, I am not treating you unfairly. Didn’t you agree with me to work for the standard wage? 3
20:14 Take what is yours and go. I 4 want to give to this last man 5 the same as I gave to you.
20:15 Am I not 6 permitted to do what I want with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?’ 7
1 tn Grk “he”; the referent (the landowner) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
2 tn Grk “And answering, he said to one of them.” This construction is somewhat redundant in contemporary English and has been simplified in the translation.
3 tn Grk “for a denarius a day.”
4 tn Here δέ (de) has not been translated.
5 tn Grk “this last one,” translated as “this last man” because field laborers in 1st century Palestine were men.
6 tc ‡ Before οὐκ (ouk, “[am I] not”) a number of significant witnesses read ἤ (h, “or”; e.g., א C W 085 Ë1,13 33 and most others). Although in later Greek the οι in σοι (oi in soi) – the last word of v. 14 – would have been pronounced like ἤ, since ἤ is lacking in early mss (B D; among later witnesses, note L Z Θ 700) and since mss were probably copied predominantly by sight rather than by sound, even into the later centuries, the omission of ἤ cannot be accounted for as easily. Thus the shorter reading is most likely original. NA27 includes the word in brackets, indicating doubts as to its authenticity.
7 tn Grk “Is your eye evil because I am good?”