Epistle of Barnabas — Chapter 4 — Vigilance, covenant and judgment
4:1
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
4:1 We must therefore examine present circumstances closely and seek out the things able to save us. Let us flee entirely from all works of lawlessness, lest works of lawlessness overtake us; and let us hate the deception of the present time, so that we may be loved in the time to come.
Textual & reception notes
4:1 Text: Works of lawlessness are repeated as both what the readers must flee and what might overtake them. The present-time/future-time contrast supplies the motivation for rejecting deception. Reception: No later section-specific reception verified in this review.
4:2
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
4:2 Let us give our own soul no license to run together with sinners and evil people, lest we become like them.
Textual & reception notes
4:2 Text: The image concerns granting one’s own soul freedom to run with evildoers. It warns against imitation, without specifying a particular institutional separation or monastic practice. Reception: No later section-specific reception verified in this review.
4:3
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
4:3 The final stumbling block has drawn near, concerning which it is written, as Enoch says. For this reason the Master has shortened the times and days, so that His Beloved may hasten and come to His inheritance.
Textual & reception notes
4:3 Text: Barnabas expressly invokes Enoch, but the precise surviving passage is not established by the recovered marginal references. The Master shortens the times so that His Beloved may hasten to the inheritance. Reception: No later section-specific reception verified in this review.
4:4
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
4:4 The prophet also speaks in this way: “Ten kingdoms will reign upon the earth, and afterward a little king will arise who will bring down three of the kings together.”
Textual & reception notes
4:4 Text: The ten kingdoms and the little king are Barnabas’s form of the Danielic prediction. Three kings are brought down together; no contemporary ruler is named by the source. Reception: No later section-specific reception verified in this review.
4:5
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
4:5 Daniel speaks similarly about the same thing: “I saw the fourth beast, evil and strong and fiercer than all the beasts of the sea, and how ten horns sprang from it, and from them a little horn, an offshoot, and how it brought down three of the great horns together.”
Textual & reception notes
4:5 Text: The fourth beast, ten horns, and smaller offshoot continue Danielic imagery. “Of the sea” follows the selected wording and should not be changed merely to match another form of Daniel 7. Reception: No later section-specific reception verified in this review.
4:6
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
4:6 You therefore ought to understand. I ask this also of you, as one of you and as one who loves each and every one of you more than my own life: attend to yourselves now, and do not become like certain people, adding to your sins by saying that the covenant belongs both to them and to us.
Textual & reception notes
4:6 Text: The participles “adding” and “saying” address the readers, not the unspecified people they imitate. The English subject has been corrected accordingly. The disputed assertion is that the covenant belongs jointly to “them” and “us.” Reception: No later section-specific reception verified in this review.
4:7
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
4:7 It belongs to us indeed; but they lost it completely in this way, when Moses had already received it. For Scripture says: “Moses was on the mountain, fasting forty days and forty nights, and received the covenant from the Lord: stone tablets written with the finger of the Lord’s hand.”
Textual & reception notes
4:7 Text: The covenant is identified with the stone tablets received during Moses’ forty-day and forty-night fast. Its alleged complete loss is Barnabas’s polemical interpretation, not the editor’s conclusion about Jewish people. Reception: No later section-specific reception verified in this review.
4:8
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
4:8 But by turning toward idols they lost it. For the Lord speaks in this way: “Moses, Moses, come down quickly, because your people whom you brought out of Egypt have acted lawlessly.” Moses understood and threw the two tablets from his hands; and their covenant was shattered, so that the covenant of the Beloved Jesus might be sealed into our heart in the hope of faith in Him.
Textual & reception notes
4:8 Text: The repeated address “Moses, Moses,” the two tablets, and the shattered covenant lead to the covenant of Jesus sealed in the heart. The concluding faith-expression can also carry possessive nuance; it is not silently harmonized with Exodus. Reception: No later section-specific reception verified in this review.
4:9
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
4:9 Though I wished to write much, I have been eager to write as one who loves you should, falling short in none of what we possess, rather than as a teacher—I, your humble offscouring. Therefore let us attend to these last days. The whole time of our faith will profit us nothing unless now, in this lawless time and amid coming stumbling blocks, we resist as befits children of God, so that the dark one may gain no entrance.
Textual & reception notes
4:9 Text: Peripsēma is a deliberately self-abasing “offscouring.” Melas, “dark one,” names the adversary in the work’s light/darkness imagery, not an ethnic group. Prior years of faith do not remove the present duty to resist. Reception: No later section-specific reception verified in this review.
4:10
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
4:10 Let us flee all futility and hate utterly the works of the evil way. Do not withdraw into yourselves and live alone as though already justified; instead, gather in one place and seek together what benefits everyone.
Textual & reception notes
4:10 Text: The prohibition targets isolation grounded in a claim already to be justified. Its positive counterpart is gathering and seeking the common benefit; it does not by itself define every later form of solitude. Reception: No later section-specific reception verified in this review.
4:11
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
4:11 For Scripture says: “Woe to those who are understanding in their own estimation and learned in their own eyes!” Let us become spiritual; let us become a complete temple for God. As far as lies within us, let us ponder the fear of God and struggle to keep His commandments, so that we may rejoice in His righteous ordinances.
Textual & reception notes
4:11 Text: The Isaiah 5:21 warning is followed by a communal temple image. Becoming spiritual and guarding commandments belong together; “complete” renders teleios without claiming a completed state already possessed. Reception: R2.
4:12
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
4:12 The Lord will judge the world without partiality. Each will receive according to what each has done. If someone is good, that person’s righteousness will go ahead; if someone is evil, the reward of wickedness stands before that person.
Textual & reception notes
4:12 Text: Impartial judgment is explicitly according to deeds. The good person’s righteousness and the evildoer’s recompense both precede them; the translation preserves this parallel rather than supplying different standards of judgment. Reception: No later section-specific reception verified in this review.
4:13
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
4:13 Let us not, resting easy as people who are called, fall asleep over our sins, lest the evil ruler gain authority against us and thrust us away from the Lord’s kingdom.
Textual & reception notes
4:13 Text: Being called must not become an excuse for sleeping over sins. The evil ruler’s power is directed against the complacent, with exclusion from the Lord’s kingdom as the threatened result. Reception: No later section-specific reception verified in this review.
4:14
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
4:14 Consider this also, my brothers and sisters: when you see that, even after such great signs and wonders happened in Israel, they were nevertheless abandoned, let us take heed lest, as it is written, we be found among many called but few chosen.
Textual & reception notes
4:14 Text: “Many called, few chosen” recalls Matthew 22:14. Barnabas applies the warning to his own readers after describing Israel’s experience; the translator does not remove that self-directed admonition. Reception: No later section-specific reception verified in this review.