Luke 12:3-5 New English Translation
3 So then[a] whatever you have said in the dark will be heard in the light, and what you have whispered[b] in private rooms[c] will be proclaimed from the housetops.[d]
4 “I[e] tell you, my friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body,[f] and after that have nothing more they can do. 5 But I will warn[g] you whom you should fear: Fear the one who, after the killing,[h] has authority to throw you[i] into hell.[j] Yes, I tell you, fear him!
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- Luke 12:3 tn Or “because.” Understanding this verse as a result of v. 2 is a slightly better reading of the context. Knowing what is coming should impact our behavior now.
- Luke 12:3 tn Grk “spoken in the ear,” an idiom. The contemporary expression is “whispered.”
- Luke 12:3 sn The term translated private rooms refers to the inner room of a house, normally without any windows opening outside, the most private location possible (BDAG 988 s.v. ταμεῖον 2).
- Luke 12:3 tn The expression “proclaimed from the housetops” is an idiom for proclaiming something publicly (L&N 7.51). Roofs of many first century Jewish houses in Judea and Galilee were flat and had access either from outside or from within the house. Something shouted from atop a house would be heard by everyone in the street below.
- Luke 12:4 tn Here δέ (de) has not been translated.
- Luke 12:4 sn Judaism had a similar exhortation in 4 Macc 13:14-15.
- Luke 12:5 tn Grk “will show,” but in this reflective context such a demonstration is a warning or exhortation.
- Luke 12:5 sn The actual performer of the killing is not here specified. It could be understood to be God (so NASB, NRSV) but it could simply emphasize that, after a killing has taken place, it is God who casts the person into hell.
- Luke 12:5 tn The direct object (“you”) is understood.
- Luke 12:5 sn The word translated hell is “Gehenna” (γέεννα, geenna), a Greek transliteration of the Hebrew words ge hinnom (“Valley of Hinnom”). This was the valley along the south side of Jerusalem. In OT times it was used for human sacrifices to the pagan god Molech (cf. Jer 7:31; 19:5-6; 32:35), and it came to be used as a place where human excrement and rubbish were disposed of and burned. In the intertestamental period, it came to be used symbolically as the place of divine punishment (cf. 1 En. 27:2; 90:26; 4 Ezra 7:36).
New English Translation (NET)
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