Philemon 1:25

1:25 May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit.


tn Grk “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ with your spirit.” The elided verb, normally an optative, has been rendered as “be.”

tc Most witnesses, including several excellent ones (א C D1 Ψ 0278 Ï lat sy), conclude this letter with ἀμήν (amhn, “amen”). Such a conclusion is routinely added by scribes to NT books because a few of these books originally had such an ending (cf. Rom 16:27; Gal 6:18; Jude 25). A majority of Greek witnesses have the concluding ἀμήν in every NT book except Acts, James, and 3 John (and even in these books, ἀμήν is found in some witnesses). It is thus a predictable variant. Further, several good witnesses (Ì87 A D* 048vid 6 33 81 1739* 1881 sa) lack the ἀμήν, rendering the omission the preferred reading.