Paragraph 5:7–11

5:7a

About three hours later: People in that place and time counted twelve hours from sunrise to sunset. The actual amount of time between sunrise and sunset could be shorter or longer, depending on the time of year. But three hours would be one-quarter of the daylight time. (This would be, for example, from the sun being half way up to it being fully up at the middle of the day. But in these verses we do not know when in the day this time began.)

Some languages do not count the time in a day by hours. If that is true in your language, you may want to:

• Refer to the amount of daytime. For example:

About a quarter of the daytime later

• Use the major language word for hours. For example:

About 3 awa later

his wife also: The word his refers to Ananias.

came in: Both “carried…out” (5:6b) and came in imply that Peter was in a building. The Greek does not tell us or imply what kind of building. (It was probably not any building in the temple area.)

If your language must say into what thing that Sapphira came, refer in general to a building. For example:

came into ⌊the building⌋

5:7b

unaware of what had happened: Sapphira did not know that her husband had died. Here is another way to translate this:

but she did not know what had happened

what had happened: This refers to Ananias dying.

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