Lectionary Year A
June 30, 2002
Romans 6:12-23

Initial Acquaintance/Rough Translation

A. Comparing Translations

(JFC) The Contemporary English Version and the New Revised Standard Version differ some as these notes will demonstrate:

12 Don't let sin rule your body. - CEV
Therefore, do not let sin exercise dominion in your mortal bodies, - NRSV
After all, your body is bound to die, so don't obey your desires. - CEV
to make you obey your passions. - NRSV

13 or let any part of it become a slave of evil. - CEV
No longer present your members to sin as instruments of wickedness, - NRSV
Make every part of your body a slave that pleases God. - CEV
And present your members to God as instruments of righteousness. - NRSV

14 Don't let sin keep ruling your lives. You are ruled by God's kindness and not by the Law. - CEV
For sin will not have dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace. - NRSV

16b or you can be obedient slaves to God and be acceptable to him. - CEV
or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? - NRSV

17b with all your heart you obeyed the teaching you received from me. - CEV
obedient from the heart to the form of teaching to which you were entrusted. - NRSV

18b slaves who please God. - CEV
slaves of righteousness. - NRSV

19 I am using these every day examples, because in some ways you are still weak. - CEV
I am speaking in human terms because of your natural limitations. - NRSV
slaves of your evil thoughts. - CEV
as slaves to impurity and to greater and greater iniquity, - NRSV
so that you will belong completely to him. - CEV
righteousness for sanctification. - NRSV

20b you didn't have to please God. - CEV
you were free in regards to righteousness. - NRSV

21b All you have to show for them is your shame, and they lead to death. - CEV
things of which you are now ashamed? The end of those things is death. - NRSV

22b This will make you holy and will lead to eternal life. - CEV
the advantage you get is sanctification. The end is eternal life. - NRSV

23b But God's gift is eternal life given by Jesus Christ our LORD. - CEV
but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. - NRSV

B. Textual Criticism

(JFC) 12 For tai/j evpiqumi,aij auvtou//, Papyrus 46 and several ("chiefly Western witnesses", according to Metzger, TCGNT) other of the more reliables read auth, or auth en taij epiqumiaij autou, while many more of the more significant editions retain the printed text. Metzger notes that the discrepancy could come from the mention of a`marti,a|, in the next verse and then he says, "The omission of the words from 618 must be accidental." Perhaps.

15 For the aorist, active, subjunctive, first person, plural, a`marth,swmen, several minor parts of the tradition read a future tense, amarthsomen, while some more significant others read a perfect, active, indicative, hmarthsomen. It seems that Paul's approach would tend to be more the former than the latter. Or do you think differently?

16b One major and one minor and a few others (Metzger calls them 'varsional and patristic') omit the clause, eivj qa,naton. This sentence becomes unbalanced and a lot less emphatic if those two words are deleted. "A majority of the (Metzger's TCGNT) Committee was disposed to regard their omission as an unintentional oversight."

17 One of the more important Witnesses, A, adds an adjective, kaqaraj, to the phrase, de. evk kardi,aj. While this adjective, "clean, pure", does add to the meaning, alone the word without the added adjective might convey the meaning sufficiently and, since the Witnesses are so few, we can go without adding it at this point in the study.

18 A couple of the more significant Witnesses and a few others add, oun, to the opening part of this verse, evidently to add emphasis to the continuation of the thought(s) of this rather Pauline = long sentence. It seems unnecessary although it could be original from the mouth/pen of this author.

19 For the noun, accusative, plural, dou/la th/| avkaqarsi,a, some major and others read a verb in the infinitive, douleuein . . . , which seems severely awkward, at best, at this juncture and therefore, hardly likely to have been original. The same redaction occurs later in the verse as well, with one of the major parts of the tradition and Epiphranius of Constantia, a 403 CE editor/translator, adding opra (arm, instrument, etc.) to this part of the argument, unnecessarily, surely, huh? Therein between, we find one right important constant witness and a few others omitting eivj th.n avnomi,an, apparently thinking it was an accidental repetition of a similar phrase just preceding it. However, the repetition, though longer, does seem like it could have been original from this author of this part of his treatise on this subject.

21 Several of the more reliable editors add the word, men, between to and ga.r, right unnecessarily it seems, and, since it adds length here, it seems objectionable to trying to get at the original text. Besides, more majors retain the text as printed.

C. Rough Translation

(JFC) 12 Do not then rule the sin in the mortal of your body to the to obey to the passion of it, 13 nor present the bodily parts of your weapons/tools/instruments of wrongdoing/evil to the sin, but present yourselves to the God as from dead to be living (present, active, participle) and the body parts of yours weapons of righteousness to the God. 14 For sin of you will not have power over; for not are you under law but under grace. 15 What then/therefore? Should we sin, that/because/for/since not are we under law but under grace? Not did it come into being (aorist, middle, optative). 16 Not do you know that to whomever you give yourselves as slaves for/into obedience, slaves you are unto the one you obey, either sin into/ death or obedience unto righteousness? 17 But to grace of the God that you are to be (imperative, active, indicative) as slaves of the sin you obeyed (aorist, active, indicative) but from heart to the one to whom you were entrusted (aorist, passive, indicative) a model/pattern of what was taught/teaching, 18 but you having been freed (aorist, passive, participle) from the sin were enslaved (aorist, passive, indicative) by the righteousness. 19 Humanly (adverb) I speak through the weakness of the flesh of yours. For as you showed the body parts/members of yours as slaves to the impurity and the lawlessness/wickedness to the lawlessness/wickedness, in this way/so/thus now show (imperative) show the body parts of yours as slaves to righteousness to consecration/sanctification. 20 For when as slaves you live/be (imperative) of the sin, free persons you are to be (imperative) to the righteousness. 21 What then fruit/grain/result are you to get/keep/possess (imperative) then? On which now you are ashamed, for the end of them is death. 22 But now you were being set free (aorist, passive, participle) from the sin but you were being enslaved (aorist, passive, participle) by the God you have the fruit/grain/result of yours unto sanctification, but the end (is) life eternal. 23 For the pay/wages of the sin (is) death, but the gift/grace of the God (is) life eternal in Christ Jesus the Lord of ours.



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