“The voice 2 of one shouting in the wilderness,
‘Prepare the way for the Lord, make 3 his paths straight.’” 4
11:11 “I tell you the truth, 5 among those born of women, no one has arisen greater than John the Baptist. Yet the one who is least 6 in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he is.
23:15 “Woe to you, experts in the law 20 and you Pharisees, hypocrites! You cross land and sea to make one convert, 21 and when you get one, 22 you make him twice as much a child of hell 23 as yourselves!
1 tn Grk “was spoken of by Isaiah the prophet, saying.” The participle λέγοντος (legonto") is redundant and has not been translated. The passive construction has also been rendered as active in the translation for the sake of English style.
2 tn Or “A voice.”
3 sn This call to “make paths straight” in this context is probably an allusion to preparation through repentance.
4 sn A quotation from Isa 40:3.
5 tn Grk “Truly (ἀμήν, amhn), I say to you.”
6 sn After John comes a shift of eras. The new era is so great that the lowest member of it (the one who is least in the kingdom of God) is greater than the greatest one of the previous era.
7 sn This verse has been noted for its conceptual similarity to teaching in John’s Gospel (10:15; 17:2). The authority of the Son and the Father are totally intertwined.
8 tn Or “wishes”; or “intends”; or “plans” (cf. BDAG 182 s.v. βούλομαι 2.b). Here it is the Son who has sovereignty.
9 tn Grk “a certain man.” The Greek word ἄνθρωπος (anqrwpo") is used here in a somewhat generic sense.
10 sn This individual with a hundred sheep is a shepherd of modest means, as flocks often had up to two hundred head of sheep.
11 sn Look for the one that went astray. The parable pictures God’s pursuit of the sinner. On the image of Jesus as the Good Shepherd, see John 10:1-18.
12 tn Here δέ (de) has not been translated.
13 tn Grk “one hundred denarii.” The denarius was a silver coin worth about a day’s wage for a laborer; this would be about three month’s pay.
14 tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “so.” A new sentence was started at this point in the translation in keeping with the tendency of contemporary English style to use shorter sentences.
15 tn Grk “and he grabbed him and started choking him.”
16 tn The word “me” is not in the Greek text, but is implied. Direct objects were often omitted in Greek when clear from the context.
17 tn Grk “said to him.”
18 tn Grk “Say that.”
19 tc A majority of witnesses read σου (sou, “your”) here, perhaps for clarification. At the same time, it is possible that the pronoun dropped out through haplography or was excised because of perceived redundancy (there are two other such pronouns in the verse) by א B. Either way, the translation adds it due to the requirements of English style. NA27 includes σου here.
20 tn Or “scribes.” See the note on the phrase “experts in the law” in 2:4.
21 tn Or “one proselyte.”
22 tn Grk “when he becomes [one].”
23 tn Grk “a son of Gehenna.” Expressions constructed with υἱός (Juios) followed by a genitive of class or kind denote a person belonging to the class or kind specified by the following genitive (L&N 9.4). Thus the phrase here means “a person who belongs to hell.”
sn See the note on the word hell in 5:22.
24 tn Grk “to everyone who has, he will be given more.”
sn The one who has will be given more. Faithfulness yields great reward (see Matt 13:12; also Mark 4:25; Luke 8:18, 19:26).
25 sn The one who has nothing has even what he seems to have taken from him, ending up with no reward at all (see also Luke 8:18). The exact force of this is left ambiguous, but there is no comfort here for those who are pictured by the third slave as being totally unmoved by the master. Though not an outright enemy, there is no relationship to the master either.