Mark 6:8-11

6:8 He instructed them to take nothing for the journey except a staff ¹  – no bread, no bag, ²  no money in their belts – 6:9 and to put on sandals but not to wear two tunics. ³  6:10 He said to them, “Wherever you enter a house, stay there ⁴  until you leave the area. 6:11 If a place will not welcome you or listen to you, as you go out from there, shake the dust off ⁵  your feet as a testimony against them.”

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¹ sn Neither Matt 10:9-10 nor Luke 9:3 allow for a staff. It might be that Matthew and Luke mean not taking an extra staff, or that the expression is merely rhetorical for “traveling light,” which has been rendered in two slightly different ways.

² tn Or “no traveler’s bag”; or possibly “no beggar’s bag” (L&N 6.145; BDAG 811 s.v. πήρα).

³ tn Or “shirts” (a long garment worn under the cloak next to the skin). The name for this garment (χιτών, citwn) presents some difficulty in translation. Most modern readers would not understand what a “tunic” was any more than they would be familiar with a “chiton.” On the other hand, attempts to find a modern equivalent are also a problem: “Shirt” conveys the idea of a much shorter garment that covers only the upper body, and “undergarment” (given the styles of modern underwear) is more misleading still. “Tunic” was therefore employed, but with a note to explain its nature.

⁴ sn Jesus telling his disciples to stay there in one house contrasts with the practice of religious philosophers in the ancient world who went from house to house begging.

⁵ sn To shake the dust off represented shaking off the uncleanness from one’s feet; see Luke 10:11; Acts 13:51; 18:6. It was a sign of rejection.