Paragraph 10:5–12
10:5a
Whatever house you enter: The clause Whatever house you enter introduces a general instruction. It applies to any time when the disciples arrived in a town and went to a particular house where they hoped to stay as guests.
In some languages it may be necessary to make explicit some of the implied information. For example:
Whenever you enter someone’s home (New Living Translation (2004))
-or-
Whenever ⌊someone invites⌋ you to stay at their house
-or-
Whenever you ⌊arrive in a town and you⌋ go to a particular house to stay
10:5b
begin by saying: Jesus’ command begin by saying indicates that he wanted the disciples to speak a blessing on those in the household before they said or did anything else. Other ways to translate this command are:
As soon as you enter a home, say (Contemporary English Version)
-or-
greet the family right away with the words (God’s Word)
Peace to this house: The clause Peace to this house was a normal way for a Jew to greet people when he entered their home. The greeting implied that the speaker was asking God to bless the people in the house by giving them peace. Some other ways to translate this are:
May God give peace to ⌊all/you(plur)⌋ in this home
-or-
May God bless/prosper this family
In some languages it may be more natural to translate 10:5b as indirect speech. For example:
the first thing you should do is to ask God aloud to bless everyone in the household with peace
Peace: The Jewish concept of Peace includes both an absence of war or conflict and a state of well-being, safety, health, and prosperity. All this comes from God for those who are in a relationship with him.
Some languages will have one word to describe the absence of war or conflict and a different word to describe well-being in general. Choose a word that includes as many different senses of the word “peace” as possible. If you must choose a specific sense, a word that means “well-being” fits this context better than a word that means “absence of conflict.”
See peace in the Glossary.
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