5:22 But the fruit of the Spirit41 is love,42 joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,435:23 gentleness, and44 self-control. Against such things there is no law. 5:24 Now those who belong to Christ45 have crucified the flesh46 with its passions47 and desires.
sn Another way to punctuate this is “love” followed by a colon (love: joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control). It is thus possible to read the eight characteristics following “love” as defining love.
tn “And” is supplied here as a matter of English style, which normally inserts “and” between the last two elements of a list or series.
45
tc‡ Some mss (א A B C P Ψ 01221 0278 33 1175 1739 pc co) read “Christ Jesus” here, while many significant ones (𝔓46 D F G 0122*,2 latt sy), as well as the Byzantine text, lack “Jesus.” The Byzantine text is especially not prone to omit the name “Jesus”; that it does so here argues for the authenticity of the shorter reading (for similar instances of probably authentic Byzantine shorter readings, see Matt 24:36 and Phil 1:14; cf. also W.-H. J. Wu, “A Systematic Analysis of the Shorter Readings in the Byzantine Text of the Synoptic Gospels” [Ph.D. diss., Dallas Theological Seminary, 2002]). On the strength of the alignment of 𝔓46 with the Western and Byzantine texttypes, the shorter reading is preferred. NA27 includes the word in brackets, indicating doubts as to its authenticity.