⁵ tn Heb “Lest my wrath go out like fire and burn with no one to put it out because of the evil of your deeds.”

¹ sn Psalm 106. The psalmist recalls Israel’s long history of rebellion against God, despite his mighty saving deeds on their behalf.

¹ tn Or “his benefits” (see 2 Chr 32:25, where the noun is also used of kind deeds performed by the Lord).

² tn Heb “is lifted up.” The idiom “the right hand is lifted up” refers to victorious military deeds (see Pss 89:42; 118:16).

¹ tn Heb “his righteousness.” Here the noun צִדָקָה (tsidaqah) refers to the Lord’s saving deeds whereby he vindicates the oppressed.

¹ tn Heb “for to the guilt of the Lord upon us you are saying to add to our sins and our guilty deeds.”

¹ tn Heb “by a strong hand and an outstretched arm,” the hand and arm symbolizing divine activity and strength. Cf. NLT “with amazing power and mighty deeds.”

¹ tn Heb “As the work [or “deed”] of the land of Egypt, which you were dwelling in it, you must not do.”

¹ sn By this refers to the righteous deeds mentioned at the end of 3:18, the expressions of love. It is by doing these deeds that believers assure themselves that they belong to the truth because the outward action reflects the inward reality of their relationship with God. Put another way, ‘conduct is the clue to paternity.’

¹ sn Jesus says that in the final analysis, the deeds he did should indicate whether he was truly from the Father. If the authorities could not believe in him, it would be better to believe in the deeds he did than not to believe at all.

⁶ tn Heb “make known.” The implied object is “your deeds”; the pronoun “them,” referring to “deeds” in the previous line, was employed in the translation to avoid redundancy. The suffix on the form חַיֵּיהוּ (khayyehu, “revive it”) does double duty in the parallelism.

⁵ tn Heb “and his good deed will repay him.” The word גְּמֻלוֹ (g^emulo) could be (1) the subject or (2) part of a double accusative of the verb. Understanding it as part of the double accusative makes better sense, for then the subject of the verb is God. How “his deed” could repay him is not immediately obvious.

¹ tn Or “sinful deeds.” The Hebrew term used here can have a nonmoral nuance (“dangers”) or a moral one (“sinful deeds”) depending on the context. The next line (see “my sins”) seems to favor the moral sense, but the psalmist also speaks of enemies shortly after this (v. 14).

² tn Heb “his signs and his deeds which he did” (NRSV similar). The collocation of “signs” and “deeds” indicates that these acts were intended to make an impression on observers and reveal something about God’s power (cf. v. 2b). The word “awesome” has been employed to bring out the force of the word “signs” in this context.

⁷ tc The MT reading מַלְאָכֵכֵה (malʾakhekheh, “your messengers”) has a very unusual ending: the plural ending of the noun is spelled defectively (short spelling), while the second person feminine singular pronominal suffix is spelled plene (long spelling); see GKC 258 §91.l. It is possible that the final ה (hey) is due to dittography with the first letter of the first word of the next verse, הוֹי (hoy, “Woe!”). On the other hand, the LXX reads τὰ ἔργα σου (ta erga sou, “your deeds”) which reflects מַלְאֲכַיִךְ (malʾakhayikh, “your deeds”)—a confusion of מַלְאָךְ (malʾakh, “messenger”) for מְלָאכָה (m^elaʾkhah, “deed”) due to the unusual Hebrew ending here.

¹ sn Shares in his evil deeds. Giving a public greeting could be understood by an onlooker to suggest agreement with the (false) teaching of the opponents and is thus prohibited by John.

³ tn Grk “another, men committing…and receiving,” continuing the description of their deeds. Because of the length and complexity of the Greek sentence, a new sentence was started here in the translation.

² sn Making their deeds known. Ephesus was a major pagan religious center with much syncretistic “magical” practice. Coming to Jesus changed the lives and attitudes of these believers, creating a social impact.

⁴ tn Grk “How is it that you have [or Why have you] placed this deed in your heart?” Both of these literal translations differ from the normal way of expressing the thought in English.

³ sn Again the combination of word (spoke to them) and healing (cured, compassionate deed) is what summarizes Jesus’ ministry: See Luke 4:38-44; 6:17-19; 7:22 (as also the disciples, 9:6).