18:15 “If 1 your brother 2 sins, 3 go and show him his fault 4 when the two of you are alone. If he listens to you, you have regained your brother.
18:18 “I tell you the truth, 5 whatever you bind on earth will have been bound in heaven, and whatever you release on earth will have been released in heaven.
1 tn Here δέ (de) has not been translated. All the “if” clauses in this paragraph are third class conditions in Greek.
2 tn The Greek term “brother” can mean “fellow believer” or “fellow Christian” (cf. BDAG 18 s.v. ἀδελφός 2.a) whether male or female. It can also refer to siblings, though here it is used in a broader sense to connote familial relationships within the family of God. Therefore, because of the familial connotations, “brother” has been retained in the translation here in preference to the more generic “fellow believer” (“fellow Christian” would be anachronistic in this context).
3 tc ‡ The earliest and best witnesses lack “against you” after “if your brother sins.” It is quite possible that the shorter reading in these witnesses (א B, as well as 0281 Ë1 579 pc sa) occurred when scribes either intentionally changed the text (to make it more universal in application) or unintentionally changed the text (owing to the similar sound of the end of the verb ἁμαρτήσῃ [Jamarthsh] and the prepositional phrase εἰς σέ [eis se]). However, if the
4 tn Grk “go reprove him.”
5 tn Grk “Truly (ἀμήν, amhn), I say to you.”