2 Corinthians — Linguistic Gap Analysis (Hmong Language Package)

Purpose. This document performs the Phase 1 linguistic gap analysis mandated for full-book coverage: it (A) builds a doctrine-by-doctrine vocabulary matrix showing what Hmong resources exist, where they are weak, and what strategy Phase 2 generation must follow; (B) separates genuinely missing vocabulary (no native referent at all) from crowded semantic neighborhoods (a single Hmong lexical item or root already serving several distinct theological senses) that require explicit lexical fencing; (C) records the transliteration-vs-paraphrase decisions made or inherited for this book; and (D) ranks the letter’s highest-risk ambiguities so Phase 2 prompt engineering and human-reviewer attention can be prioritized correctly.

This analysis governs, and must never contradict, analysis/08_core_glossary.md and assets/bible_term_registry.json (2 Corinthians). Where risk tiers or renderings are cited below, they are reused verbatim from those documents; no new rendering is introduced here that was not already flagged in §B of the core glossary or in the term registry’s translation_notes.

Core passage anchor: 2 Corinthians 5:11-21 (Reconciliation with God, New Creation in Christ). This passage is the theological anchor for prioritization throughout, but — per the full-book-coverage mandate — every chapter (1–13) is covered below; no chapter is silently skipped.

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A. Doctrine Vocabulary Matrix

For each of the eight assigned doctrines: the available Hmong terms (inherited + new), their specific weaknesses, and the recommended Phase 2 strategy. Risk tiers follow assets/doctrine_risk_registry.json definitions (Critical / High / Medium / Low), inherited from the Romans baseline.

A.1 Reconciliation with God — Overall Risk: Critical

Available Hmong Term(s)	Weakness	Recommended Strategy
kev sib haum xeeb (nrog Vajtswv) — reconciliation (#18)	Bare kev sib haum xeeb is the ordinary word for interpersonal/clan peacemaking after a dispute (e.g., after a land or bride-price quarrel); without the God-ward anchor it defaults to horizontal reconciliation only. 2 Cor 5:18-20 is the single densest NT concentration of this term (4x in 6 verses) — a single dropped anchor anywhere in this stretch will retrain the hearer’s default reading for the whole passage.	Mandatory, exceptionless God-ward qualifier at every one of the four occurrences in 5:18-20, with no elision even in poetic/liturgical restatement.
suav / suav tias — reckon/impute (#14), extended to the negative direction (sins not counted, 5:19)	The Hmong accounting-metaphor verb transfers cleanly in the positive direction (righteousness credited) but has never been tested in this Language Package in its negative direction (guilt not credited); risk that translators/teachers will treat “not counting sins” as a separate, softer idea (forgetting/overlooking) rather than the same forensic mechanism running in reverse.	Explicit teaching note pairing 5:19’s negative imputation with 5:21’s positive double-imputation as one accounting logic, not two.
Vajtswv muab nws suav tias yog tus ris kev txhaum — Christ made sin (#67)	The single highest-risk clause in the book. A transformation-verb rendering (implying Christ’s nature became corrupted) would be heretical; Hmong verbs of “becoming” (hloov ua, ua rau...zoo li) must be avoided here in favor of strictly positional/forensic phrasing.	Fence this phrase permanently against any “became sinful” paraphrase; require side-by-side teaching with the mirror clause “we become the righteousness of God.”
zam txim — interpersonal forgiveness (#48)	Bridges well to Hmong clan-apology custom (a positive anchor) but risks being treated as a self-contained social skill disconnected from its χάρις root.	Teach as modeled on, and downstream of, divine grace (txiaj ntsim), not an independent virtue.
raug muab coj los ua me tub (ntawm Vajtswv) — adoption, extended to daughters (6:18)	Baseline formula is grammatically male-coded in ordinary Hmong usage (me tub = son); 2 Cor 6:18 explicitly adds daughters.	Explicit inclusive gloss required at 6:18 occurrence: “me tub thiab me ntxhais” noted alongside the fixed formula so the female inclusion is not silently lost.
kev ua haujlwm tshaj tawm kev sib haum xeeb (nrog Vajtswv) — ministry of reconciliation (#65)	Doubly load-bearing (doctrine + apostolic-authority); risk of the qualifier being dropped for brevity in headers/titles.	Apply the same “atomic unit, never abbreviated” rule already established in the baseline for Vajtswv hwjchim and Txoj Kevcai (ntawm Vajtswv/Mauxes).

Gap identified: No existing Hmong vocabulary distinguishes “reconciliation as accomplished fact” (5:18-19, katallagē as completed divine act) from “reconciliation as summons” (5:20, imperative “be reconciled”). Both currently render with the same noun/verb family. Recommend logging for TM-revision: a syntactic (not lexical) distinction — completed-aspect marker (tau + verb) for the indicative statements of 5:18-19 versus an explicit imperative construction for 5:20’s appeal — rather than inventing a second lexical item.

A.2 New Creation in Christ — Overall Risk: Critical

Available Hmong Term(s)	Weakness	Recommended Strategy
tus/tej raug tsim dua ua tus tshiab — new creation (#64)	Direct collision candidate: Hmong shamanic ua neeb kho (“healing ritual”) restores a soul/spirit to its prior healthy state; Paul’s “new creation” is not restoration of a prior condition but the inbreaking of an unprecedented order. If taught loosely, 5:17 could be absorbed as “Christ fixed/restored what was wrong with you,” which is a near-miss rather than a direct collision but neutralizes the eschatological force of kainē (unprecedented, not renewed).	Explicit contrast clause required at every teaching occurrence: “tsis yog kho dua qub, tiam sis yog ib qho tshiab tag nrho” (not repaired to its former state, but an entirely new thing).
nyob hauv Khetos — in Christ (#35, inherited High)	Governs 5:17 (“if anyone is in Christ…”) and 5:21; risk unchanged from baseline — bare spatial hauv collapses the participatory sense into literal containment.	No change from baseline mandatory co-text anchoring rule.
Khetos nyob hauv koj — Christ in you (#93)	New reciprocal formula not present in the Romans baseline; risk that learners treat this as a second, competing union-doctrine rather than the same union viewed from the opposite grammatical direction.	Mandatory paired teaching note at first occurrence (13:5) explicitly cross-referencing #35 and naming the direction-reversal.
sawv hauv qhov tuag rov qab los — resurrection (#68)	Comprehension gap, not collision: Hmong ancestral belief includes continuing (non-bodily) soul-presence but no concept of a body returning to embodied life. Risk is under-teaching (audience may assume “resurrection” means something like ongoing ancestral-spirit presence) rather than active collision.	Explicit teaching note: unique, historical, bodily event, distinct from soul-continuation beliefs.
raws li kev pom ntawm neeg ntiajteb (tsis yog raws li Vajtswv) — flesh, evaluative sense, kata sarka (#69)	Third sense of σάρξ in this Language Package (see §B.1 below for full fencing discussion); directly precedes and grounds 5:17.	See crowded-neighborhood fencing in §B.1.
lub tsev ntaub — tent/earthly dwelling (#61)	Good bridge (Hmong highland dwellings are itself understood as temporary relative to permanent stone/village structures); low risk.	Comprehension-level note only.
tus duab ntawm Vajtswv/Khetos — image of God/Christ (#58)	Adjacent to, but lexically distinct from, dab mlom (idol, #29); low risk of direct confusion but flagged because both concern “images.”	Retain lexical distinction; no shared morpheme with dab mlom.

Gap identified: No single Hmong noun captures “the old has passed away” (τὰ ἀρχαῖα παρῆλθεν, 5:17b) with the same terminative force as English “passed away” (which itself, confusingly, is a Hmong-culture euphemism for death — tas sim neej / tas ib txoj sia). Flag: [TRANSLATOR REVIEW NEEDED: confirm “tas mus lawm” (has completely ended/gone) does not accidentally invoke death-euphemism registers when applied to “the old life,” since 5:17 is describing transformation, not literal death, even though death-language is thematically adjacent in 5:14-15].

A.3 Suffering and Comfort in Ministry — Overall Risk: High

Available Hmong Term(s)	Weakness	Recommended Strategy
kev nplig siab — comfort/consolation (#43)	Genuinely positive cultural bridge (Hmong funeral-visitation consolation custom); risk is under-anchoring rather than collision — generic condolence-visit register must be tied explicitly to sharing in Christ’s own sufferings (1:5).	Mandatory anchoring clause at first occurrence per chapter: “raws li peb koom nrog Khetos txoj kev txom nyem.”
kev txom nyem nyuaj siab — affliction (#44)	Comprehension-level compound; no collision, but must stay a fixed pair with #43 across all 9 chapters where it recurs (1,4,6,7,8,11,12).	Consistency check across full-book span.
kev nyuaj siab raws li Vajtswv lub siab nyiam / kev nyuaj siab ntawm lub ntiajteb — godly vs. worldly grief (#74)	Hmong funeral/mourning practice is elaborate and highly ritualized (specific mourning periods, prescribed lament, ritual objects); ordinary grief vocabulary is saturated with these associations, risking either category being read as “insufficiently ritually correct” grief rather than a theological (repentance-producing vs. despair-producing) distinction.	Explicit definitional gloss required; must NOT be taught by appeal to ritual-correctness categories.
kev hloov siab lees txim — repentance (#75)	Must be kept distinct from the baseline’s hloov siab tshiab (renewal of the mind, post-conversion transformation) — different Greek referent, different theological moment (initial turning vs. ongoing transformation). Ordinary Hmong hloov siab alone can mean simply “change one’s mind” in a secular sense.	lees txim (confess/acknowledge fault) qualifier is structurally mandatory, never dropped. [TRANSLATOR REVIEW NEEDED: confirm no confusion with hloov siab tshiab within same lesson unit — carried forward from bible_term_registry.json #75.]
kaw cim rau — seal (#46)	Comprehension gap only (modern document-sealing is a familiar concept); no collision.	Low-touch, comprehension-level note.
thawj nqi them ua pov thawj — guarantee/down payment of the Spirit (#47)	Good economic bridge, but MUST retain fixed Vaj Ntsuj Plig collocation as referent at every occurrence (1:22, 5:5); dropping the “Vaj” prefix here would be doubly damaging since the “installment” framing could otherwise suggest a impersonal financial instrument rather than the Person of the Spirit.	Structural pairing rule: thawj nqi them ua pov thawj ntawm Vaj Ntsuj Plig, never abbreviated.

A.4 The New Covenant versus the Old — Overall Risk: Critical

Available Hmong Term(s)	Weakness	Recommended Strategy
tej lus cog tseg tshiab / tej lus cog tseg qub — covenant new/old (#53)	Built on the promise root but Hmong customary oath-swearing (blood oaths, spirit-witnessed pledges between clans, sworn under ancestral witness) is a negotiated bilateral bargain, whereas biblical covenant is God’s unilaterally established, gracious order. This is the single largest structural-theology gap in this doctrine.	Mandatory teaching note at first occurrence (3:6) explicitly denying the bilateral-bargain frame; consider parallel with the baseline’s lus cog tseg (promise) entry to reinforce unilateral, gift-character framing.
cov ntawv sau (ntawm Txoj Kevcai) — letter/written code (#54)	Must always co-occur with Vaj Ntsuj Plig in the same breath (3:6-7’s entire argument is the letter/Spirit antithesis); must also retain the baseline’s mandatory Txoj Kevcai (ntawm Vajtswv / Mauxes) qualifier whenever “the letter” = the written Mosaic Law, to avoid a vague “old religion vs. new religion” flattening.	Double-qualifier enforcement: both the Law-qualifier AND the Spirit-contrast clause required in the same sentence at 3:6-7.
daim ntaub npog — veil (#55)	Comprehension-level; incidental (non-collision) association with Hmong funeral/mourning face-covering practices.	Brief explanatory gloss on first use (3:13).
raug hloov kom zoo ib yam li (Khetos, ntau ntxiv mus ntau ntxiv) — transformed/glory to glory (#56)	Must be distinguished from both kev raug ua kom dawb huv (sanctification) and any ritual-cleansing reading; this is mirror-reflection imagery (3:18), not purification imagery.	Teach alongside, but lexically separate from, sanctification vocabulary.
koom nkoj ua ke tsis sib xws — unequally yoked (#71)	Good agrarian bridge (Hmong highland farming); low risk but requires the illustrative farming-context note recommended in the term registry.	Standard agrarian illustrative note, comparable to the Romans-baseline olive-tree-grafting strategy.
lub tuam tsev ntawm Vajtswv uas muaj txoj sia nyob — temple of the living God (#72)	Direct, high-severity collision: traditional Hmong households maintain a spirit-shrine/altar (xwm kab), a fixed household location understood as the dwelling-place of household/ancestral spirits. Describing believers/the church as “the dwelling place of the living God” risks direct assimilation into the existing “a spirit resides at this designated location” framework — i.e., God becomes read as one more resident spirit alongside (not instead of) the xwm kab.	Mandatory explicit-replacement teaching (paralleling the baseline’s pehawm/worship replacement-not-addition strategy): the church does not gain an additional resident spirit; the living God’s indwelling is exclusive and replacing. Must always be taught jointly with dab mlom (#29) at 6:16, its paired verse.

A.5 Sincerity and Apostolic Authority — Overall Risk: High

Available Hmong Term(s)	Weakness	Recommended Strategy
lub siab dawb paug tsis ntxeev siab — sincerity (#45)	Shares the morpheme dawb (pure/white) with the baseline sanctification term dawb huv; without the mandatory tsis ntxeev siab (does not double-deal) qualifier, this drifts toward a ritual-purity reading rather than integrity-of-motive.	Qualifier is structurally mandatory at every occurrence (1:12, 2:17, 8:8, 11:3); never truncate to bare dawb paug.
kev ntshai tus Tswv — fear of the Lord (#63)	High-severity, core-passage-adjacent collision: ntshai is the identical verb used for fear of dab (malevolent spirits/ghosts) in Hmong folk religion, where the correct response to a feared spirit is placatory ritual action. Core passage opens with this term (5:11).	Requires the same contrast-teaching strategy already fixed in the baseline for kev npau taws ntawm Vajtswv (wrath of God): reverent accountability before a righteous Judge, never placatory dread of a capricious, appeasable spirit. This pairing must be taught at the very opening of any core-passage lesson.
lub rooj txiav txim ntawm Khetos — judgment seat of Christ (#62)	Legal-idiom bridge via village-court concept (similar to Romans-baseline “no condemnation” entry); comprehension-level, no collision.	Standard legal-metaphor teaching note.
tsw qab ntawm Khetos — fragrance of Christ (#50)	Adjacent to the sacrificial-offering domain (fij) already flagged as High risk in the baseline, since pleasant fragrance/incense is also associated with offerings to ancestors/spirits.	Explicit teaching: describes the effect of gospel proclamation on hearers, not a literal or ritual offering; never merge with fij vocabulary.
cov muag Vajtswv Txoj Lus yuav nyiaj — peddlers of God’s word (#51)	Directly relevant to the standing baseline prosperity-gospel-drift warning (12_ai_translation_requirements.md §9); must never be softened.	No softening permitted; this phrase’s rhetorical force (Paul’s contrast with profiteers) is doctrinally load-bearing for the whole letter’s authority argument.
tsis saib ntsej muag (idiom) vs. ntsej muag (literal, 5:12)	The stable idiom for impartiality shares surface vocabulary with the literal, non-idiomatic use of “face/appearance” at 5:12 (“not boasting according to appearance” / κατὰ πρόσωπον).	Context-sensitive disambiguation note required at 5:12 specifically, so translators do not default to the idiomatic gloss where a literal sense is intended.

A.6 Generosity and Grace in Giving — Overall Risk: Critical (via grace root)

Available Hmong Term(s)	Weakness	Recommended Strategy
txiaj ntsim — grace, extended to the giving-context sense (chs. 8-9)	The permanent baseline prohibition on koob hmoov applies with heightened stakes here: chapters 8-9 are literally about material generosity, which is precisely the domain koob hmoov (fortune/blessing tied to ritual correctness) already occupies in Hmong traditional religion. The temptation to reach for koob hmoov in a giving-and-blessing context is structurally higher here than anywhere else in the corpus.	Reinforce the permanent forbidden-substitution rule specifically for ch. 8-9 content; flag any giving-related lesson touching “grace” for extra scrutiny before publication.
kev koom tes hauv kev pab — fellowship/partnership (#77)	Must be distinguished from the baseline’s rejected softening of δοῦλος (koom tes as a demeaning-slavery euphemism); here κοινωνία is a different, legitimately positive Greek word for shared partnership in giving. Surface vocabulary overlap (koom tes) risks bleeding the two distinct teaching points together.	Explicit teaching note distinguishing this legitimate use of koom vocabulary from the baseline’s rejected use.
cog qoob loo / hlais qoob loo — sowing and reaping (#81); thawj phaus qoob loo — firstfruits (#34, inherited)	Excellent agrarian bridge; essentially risk-free for a rice-farming-heritage audience.	Comprehension-level only; may be used as a positive cross-cultural teaching asset.
tus pub uas zoo siab pub — cheerful giver (#80); kev sib npaug — equality (#78); kev txaus siab — eagerness (#79)	No collision; comprehension-level.	Standard glossing.

A.7 Power in Weakness — Overall Risk: High/Critical

Available Hmong Term(s)	Weakness	Recommended Strategy
hwjchim (always Vajtswv hwjchim) — power (#23)	Baseline High-risk collision (identical term to shamanic txiv neeb ritual power) is compounded here by the paradox of 12:9 (“power made perfect in weakness”). Unqualified, this risks being heard as merely “a weaker spell” rather than a deliberate theological inversion.	Qualifier is non-negotiable; additionally require an explicit “paradox” framing note wherever 12:9-10 is taught, distinguishing divine-power-through-weakness from any notion of diminished shamanic potency.
kev tsis muaj zog / kev qaug zog — weakness (#90)	Culturally load-bearing risk, not a traditional-religion collision but an honor-culture collision. Hmong social norms strongly prize visible strength, capability, and avoidance of public shame/loss of face (poob ntsej muag). Paul’s boast in weakness is not merely counter-intuitive but directly counter-normative for honor-shame social structures.	Requires the most vigorous explicit contrast-teaching in the entire Power-in-Weakness doctrine — parallel in intensity to the shamanic-power contrast for hwjchim, but the collision here is with an honor-culture value system, not a competing religious system; both must be addressed as distinct risk types in the same lesson.
pos txhawv nyob hauv nqaij — thorn in the flesh (#88); tus tub txib ntawm Xatas — messenger of Satan (#89)	Ordinary-affliction sense of nqaij (low risk) is paired in the same verse (12:7) with the higher-risk Xatas reference — risk is that the affliction is read as ordinary bodily suffering with no personal-adversary dimension, understating Paul’s point that this specific affliction has a named spiritual agent.	Teach the two halves of 12:7 together; do not let the low-risk half’s ease of translation cause the higher-risk half to be under-taught.
cuab yeej ua rog — weapons of warfare (#82); chaw ruaj khov — strongholds (#83)	Must be paired with the mandatory power-qualifier (muaj Vajtswv hwjchim) per the same structural rule as #23.	Reuse existing qualifier-enforcement mechanism; no new mechanism needed.
muaj peev xwm txaus — sufficient/competent (#52)	No collision; ties doctrinally to the point that human sufficiency is explicitly denied and relocated in God alone (3:5-6).	Comprehension-level, but flag the theological point (sufficiency is God’s, not the minister’s) for teaching emphasis.
thib peb lub ntuj / lub Vaj Paladaiso — third heaven/paradise (#91)	Comprehension gap regarding tiered-heaven cosmology; risk of assimilation into a generic Hmong ancestral-afterlife-realm concept if not anchored as a unique, specific visionary event.	Explicit uniqueness note required.

A.8 Genuine versus False Apostleship — Overall Risk: High

Available Hmong Term(s)	Weakness	Recommended Strategy
cov tub txib dag — false apostles (#85)	Built on baseline tus Tub Txib (apostle) plus dag (deceiving); the entire weight of the genuine/false distinction rests on this one adjectival qualifier — if dag is ever dropped or softened in translation, “false apostles” collapses into simply “apostles,” erasing the doctrine.	Treat dag as a structurally mandatory, never-dropped qualifier, on the same enforcement tier as the baseline’s Vajtswv hwjchim / Txoj Kevcai rules.
Xatas — Satan (#49), reused in tim tswv ntuj/tub txib uas zoo li muaj kaj (tiam sis yog Xatas) — angel of light (#86) and tus tub txib ntawm Xatas — messenger of Satan (#89)	Hmong cosmology has many classes of malevolent dab but no single personal chief-adversary; risk that Xatas is absorbed as merely one more (perhaps unusually powerful) dab rather than the singular personal enemy of 2 Corinthians 2, 11, 12. The “angel of light” disguise-motif is a genuine teaching bridge to Hmong folk narratives of deceptive spirit-disguise, but risks over-assimilation into generic “trickster spirit” folklore if not anchored to this specific figure.	Xatas must never be rendered with generic dab; every occurrence across all three passages (2:11, 11:14, 12:7) should be cross-referenced in teaching as the same singular figure, reinforcing personal (not generic-category) identity.
tus sawv cev (ntawm Khetos) — ambassador (#66)	Bridges reasonably to the existing clan-representative/spokesperson social role; low-to-medium risk, mainly under-teaching (missing the delegated, non-self-originated nuance) rather than collision.	Teach jointly with tus Tub Txib as complementary images of delegated authority.
cov tub txib uas xav tias lawv zoo dua ntais — super-apostles (#87); sib piv tus kheej / qhuas peb tus kheej — commend/compare themselves (#84)	Paul’s irony/sarcasm is easily flattened into a neutral descriptive title if translated too literally; risk is register/tone loss, not doctrinal collision.	Explicit teaching-note preservation of ironic tone required; not a lexical fix.
kev mloog lus ntawm kev ntseeg (obedience of faith, extended to “obedience of Christ,” #42)	Extended object (obedience to Christ specifically, 10:5) vs. the general baseline sense; risk of under-noting the narrower referent.	Note the extended-object variant at first occurrence (10:5).

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B. Missing Vocabulary vs. Crowded Semantic Neighborhoods

B.1 Crowded Semantic Neighborhoods (existing Hmong words already carrying multiple theological loads — require fencing, not new coinage)

These are the highest-priority items for Phase 2 prompt-engineering guardrails, because the risk is not absence of vocabulary but collision between senses already assigned to the same lexical root.

1. The σάρξ (“flesh”) family — now THREE fenced senses, up from two in the Romans baseline.

   • Neutral/descent (lub cev nqaij tawv) — #16
   • Moral/sinful-nature (kev xav/kev ua raws li lub cev nqaij tawv) — #17
   • NEW: evaluative/“by worldly standards” (raws li kev pom ntawm neeg ntiajteb, tsis yog raws li Vajtswv) — #69, surfacing at 5:16, 10:2-3, 11:18
   • Fencing requirement: all three phrases must remain visually and structurally distinct in every generated text; none may share a bare, unmarked nqaij/nqaij tawv token. This is now a three-way fence, not the Romans baseline’s two-way fence, and Phase 2 generation prompts must be updated to check for all three, not just two.
   • [TRANSLATOR REVIEW NEEDED: formal confirmation that #69 becomes a permanent fourth TM entry in the σάρξ family, per the flag already raised in bible_term_registry.json #69, before Phase 2 generation proceeds at scale.]

2. The dawb (pure/white) root — now THREE adjacent but distinct compounds.

   • Sanctification: kev raug ua kom dawb huv (baseline, #20) — ritual-purity collision risk
   • Sincerity: lub siab dawb paug tsis ntxeev siab (#45) — integrity-of-motive, deliberately fenced with the added tsis ntxeev siab qualifier specifically to avoid bleeding into #20’s ritual-purity register
   • Fencing requirement: the tsis ntxeev siab qualifier on #45 is not stylistic but load-bearing; it must never be dropped, since its sole function is to prevent readers from hearing “sincerity” as a claim of ritual cleanliness.

3. The fij (offering/sacrifice) domain — now spans THREE distinct uses across the two-book corpus.

   • Christ’s atonement (Romans baseline, qhov theej txhoj kev txhaum)
   • Living sacrifice/ethical devotion (Romans baseline, khoom fij uas muaj txoj sia nyob)
   • NEW adjacency: fragrance of Christ (tsw qab ntawm Khetos, #50) — not itself a fij-root word, but semantically adjacent via incense/pleasing-smell-to-a-spirit associations
   • Fencing requirement: #50 must never be merged with fij vocabulary even though the underlying image (pleasing aroma) is historically sacrificial; teaching notes must state explicitly that 2:14-16 describes an effect on hearers, not an offering.

4. The hwjchim (power) family — reused and intensified.

   • Baseline: bare hwjchim forbidden; must always be Vajtswv hwjchim.
   • This book adds the paradox of 12:9 (power perfected in weakness) and the civil/military metaphor of “weapons of warfare” (10:4) and “strongholds” (10:4-5), all requiring the same qualifier.
   • Fencing requirement: no new fencing mechanism needed, but the volume of qualifier-enforcement checkpoints rises sharply in chs. 10, 12, 13 — Phase 2 validation checklists should flag these chapters for extra qualifier-audit passes.

5. The ntshai (fear) / npau taws (wrath) collision family — extended into new territory.

   • Baseline: kev npau taws ntawm Vajtswv (wrath of God) already fenced against capricious-spirit-anger readings.
   • NEW: kev ntshai tus Tswv (fear of the Lord, #63) is a structurally parallel collision (fear of a spirit is placatory-ritual-triggering in Hmong folk religion) and must receive the same contrast-teaching treatment, explicitly cross-referenced to the existing wrath-of-God teaching strategy so the two are taught as one consistent pattern (reverent accountability, never appeasement) rather than two separate lessons.

6. The nyob hauv (in/inside) union-formula family — now bidirectional.

   • Baseline: nyob hauv Khetos (believer in Christ), High risk, mandatory co-text anchoring.
   • NEW: Khetos nyob hauv koj (Christ in you, #93) — same root preposition, reversed direction.
   • Fencing requirement: both formulas must be taught as one reality viewed from two directions; Phase 2 generation must never let the reversed formula drift toward a different theological claim (e.g., a private mystical indwelling separable from corporate union-with-Christ) than the forward formula already carries.

7. The koom (join/partner) root — now spans a rejected use and a legitimate use.

   • Baseline: koom tes was permanently rejected as a softening euphemism for δοῦλος (bondservant).
   • NEW: kev koom tes hauv kev pab (fellowship/partnership, #77) is a legitimately positive different-Greek-word usage.
   • Fencing requirement: explicit teaching note required distinguishing “the koom tes we rejected in Romans 1:1 teaching” from “the koom tes legitimately used in 2 Corinthians 8:4, 13:14,” since surface identity of the Hmong phrase could otherwise cause teachers to either avoid a legitimate term or rehabilitate a rejected one by association.

8. The hloov siab (change the liver/heart = change one’s mind/heart) root — now spans three related but distinct compounds.

   • Baseline: hloov siab tshiab (renewal of the mind, post-conversion ongoing transformation)
   • NEW: kev hloov siab lees txim (repentance, #75) — initial penitential turning, a different theological moment
   • NEW (background reuse): raug hloov kom zoo ib yam li (Khetos...) (transformed/glory to glory, #56) — progressive Christlikeness, mirror-image
   • Fencing requirement: all three must be kept terminologically and conceptually distinct in any single lesson unit that touches more than one (e.g., a lesson spanning chs. 3-7); [TRANSLATOR REVIEW NEEDED: confirm no confusion between #75 and the baseline renewal-of-the-mind term when both appear in the same curriculum module, per the flag already raised in bible_term_registry.json #75].

B.2 Genuinely Missing Vocabulary (no native Hmong referent — comprehension gap requiring explanatory strategy, not fencing)

Unlike §B.1, these have no existing competing Hmong sense to guard against; the challenge is pure comprehension, and the strategy is explanatory gloss/illustration, not lexical fencing.

Gap	Chapters	Strategy
Covenant as a unilaterally established, gracious legal order (vs. Hmong’s only available covenant-adjacent concept: bilateral, negotiated clan/blood oath)	3	Explicit contrast-teaching note; this is the single largest structural gap in the New-Covenant-versus-Old doctrine (see A.4).
Tiered cosmology (“third heaven,” “paradise” as a specific visionary destination distinct from ordinary afterlife)	12	Explanatory gloss; anchor as unique historical vision, not generic afterlife realm.
A singular personal chief adversary (Satan) distinct from the Hmong multi-class dab spirit taxonomy	2, 11, 12	Transliteration + repeated explicit identity-anchoring across all occurrences (see §C.1).
Bodily resurrection as return to embodied life (vs. Hmong ancestral soul-continuation, which is non-bodily)	5	Explanatory teaching note; comprehension gap, not collision.
Formal ambassadorial/diplomatic representation as a distinct social role (partial bridge only via clan-spokesperson custom, which lacks the cross-national/treaty dimension)	5	Teach jointly with the closer clan-messenger bridge already used for “apostle.”
Ceremonial greeting-kiss as an affection convention among unrelated adults	13	Cultural-equivalence substitution note (recommend substituting the culturally standard warm formal greeting), not a literal-kiss instruction.
Agricultural yoke-partnership as a forbidden-mismatch metaphor (Hmong farming has yokes, but the specific “unequally matched pair is harmful to both animals” teaching point may need an illustrative example, not just the image itself)	6	Illustrative farming-context note recommended (parallel to Romans-baseline olive-grafting strategy).

Observation: Notably, this book’s missing-vocabulary list is shorter and lower-severity than its crowded-neighborhood list. The dominant translation challenge in 2 Corinthians is not absence of words but the reuse pressure on an already-committed Romans-baseline lexicon (dawb, fij, hwjchim, nyob hauv, koom, hloov siab, nqaij) as Paul deploys these same conceptual domains in new argumentative contexts (suffering, giving, apostolic legitimacy) not present in Romans.

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C. Transliteration vs. Paraphrase Decisions

Term	Decision	Rationale
Σατανᾶς (Satanas)	Transliterate → Xatas	Follows existing Hmong Christian usage; paraphrasing as dab (generic spirit) would immediately trigger the exact collision this term must avoid — the whole point is that Satan is not one more dab. Transliteration preserves referential uniqueness at the cost of a minor comprehension gap, which is resolved by repeated explicit identity-anchoring (§B.2) rather than by translating the name.
παράδεισος (paradeisos, “paradise”)	Transliterate + native gloss → lub Vaj Paladaiso	Compound of transliteration (Paladaiso) plus the native classifier/gloss Vaj (garden), consistent with the existing Hmong Bible tradition’s handling of untranslatable proper/technical nouns (cf. baseline’s Abba, Leej Txiv pattern: loanword retained plus native gloss). A pure paraphrase (“a beautiful place after death”) would collapse the term into the generic ancestral-afterlife category this term must be kept distinct from.
ἀρραβών (arrabōn, “guarantee/down payment”)	Paraphrase → thawj nqi them ua pov thawj	Native economic-legal idiom (first installment payment as proof/guarantee) transfers cleanly via the existing Hmong debt-culture bridge already used for apolytrōsis (redemption) in the Romans baseline; no comprehension gap requiring a loanword.
βῆμα (bēma, “judgment seat”)	Paraphrase → lub rooj txiav txim ntawm Khetos	Village-court legal-idiom bridge, consistent with the Romans-baseline strategy for katakrima (no condemnation); a transliterated loanword here would be doctrinally inert (opaque) with no comprehension gain.
διαθήκη (diathēkē, “covenant”)	Paraphrase, built on existing root → tej lus cog tseg tshiab/qub	Deliberately built on the baseline promise root (lus cog tseg) rather than transliterated, so as to leverage the already-established “solemn pledge” semantic field; a loanword would sever this connection and lose the promise-covenant continuity Paul himself draws on (echoing the Abrahamic promise theme from Romans 4, 9). Risk (bilateral-oath conflation) is managed by explicit teaching, not by lexical avoidance.
ἄγγελος (angelos, “angel/messenger”) in “angel of light” / “messenger of Satan”	Paraphrase, not transliterate → tim tswv ntuj/tub txib	Reuses existing native vocabulary for heavenly/delegated messengers (extending the tus Tub Txib apostle-root imagery) rather than importing a loanword; this keeps the messenger concept anchored in the same delegated-authority semantic field used throughout the book for legitimate apostleship, which sharpens rather than dilutes the false-messenger contrast.
Book title “2 Corinthians”	Transliterate the place-name, paraphrase the epistolary frame → provisional Tsab Ntawv 2 uas Povlauj Sau rau Cov Ntseeg hauv Lub Nroog Kaulinthaus, abbreviated 2 Kaulinthaus	Follows the Romans-baseline pattern exactly (Loos for Rome: transliterated place-name, full descriptive title on first reference, short form thereafter). [TRANSLATOR REVIEW NEEDED: confirm Kaulinthaus against the live Vaj Lug Kub Npaiv Npaum (HWB) citation convention before this becomes a permanent citation-conventions entry in a future analysis/07_semantic_analysis.md / 12_ai_translation_requirements.md equivalent for this book — this decision is provisional pending that verification, exactly as the Romans baseline flagged its own YouVersion version-ID as “pending live re-verification.”]
Χριστὸς ἐν ὑμῖν / Christ in you	Paraphrase, mirroring existing formula → Khetos nyob hauv koj	Not transliterated; reuses the exact grammatical shape of the baseline nyob hauv Khetos formula with subject/object reversed, which is the correct strategy since the doctrinal point being made is precisely the directional relationship between the two, best preserved by parallel native syntax rather than any loanword.

General transliteration policy for this book (consistent with baseline): Transliterate only where (a) an existing Hmong Christian tradition already fixes the form (none new required beyond Xatas/Paladaiso, both already in common Hmong Christian usage), or (b) paraphrase would either fall into a specific traditional-religion collision (as with Satan/dab) or be doctrinally inert/opaque. Otherwise, paraphrase using already-committed roots to preserve the corpus’s internal cross-referencing power (promise→covenant, apostle→ambassador/messenger, in-Christ→Christ-in-you).

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D. Ranked List of Highest-Risk Ambiguities

Ranked by combined severity (doctrinal centrality × collision specificity × frequency/density in the core passage and book), consistent with the Critical/High/Medium/Low tier definitions.

1. “Made [to be] sin” (5:21, #67) — Critical. The single highest-risk clause in the letter. A transformation-verb slip here is not merely a comprehension failure but a live risk of implying Christ’s nature became sinful — theologically catastrophic and specific to this exact clause of the core passage.
2. Vajtswv txoj kev ncaj ncees / justification-adjacent double-imputation at 5:21 (#13, #14) — Critical. The core passage’s climactic verse compresses the entire forensic-imputation logic of the whole two-book corpus into one sentence; any drift toward achieved-moralism here undoes both the Romans baseline and this book’s central argument simultaneously.
3. lub tuam tsev ntawm Vajtswv uas muaj txoj sia nyob (temple of the living God, 6:16, #72), paired with dab mlom (#29) — High/Critical in combination. Direct structural collision with the household xwm kab spirit-shrine concept; among all new terms in this book, this pairing has the most specific, describable competing ritual referent in Hmong traditional religion.
4. kev sib haum xeeb (nrog Vajtswv) density in 5:18-20 (#18) — Critical. Four occurrences in six verses; a single dropped anchor anywhere in this stretch retrains the hearer’s default (horizontal-only) reading for the entire densest reconciliation passage in the New Testament.
5. kev ntshai tus Tswv (fear of the Lord, 5:11, #63) — High. Opens the core passage; identical verb to fear-of-dab in folk religion; if the very first clause of the core-passage lesson is misheard as placatory dread, the whole passage’s motivational logic (reverent accountability, not appeasement) is compromised from the outset.
6. tag nrho cov Yixalayees yuav dim-style salvation-vocabulary reuse pressure in kev cawm dim (#24) combined with hwjchim (#23) in 12:9-10 and the letter’s affliction catalogues — High. Inherits the Romans-baseline’s highest-density collision pattern (shamanic-rescue/shamanic-power) but now applied to Paul’s own weakness and suffering, raising the stakes: an unqualified reading could suggest Paul’s power failed rather than that God’s power operates paradoxically through his weakness.
7. The three-way σάρξ fence (#16/#17/#69) — Critical, structurally. Not a single-verse risk but a systemic risk: this book adds a third sense to an already-delicate two-way fence, and 5:16’s third sense directly precedes and grounds 5:17’s “new creation” declaration — a fence failure here would corrupt the logical hinge of the entire core passage.
8. cov tub txib dag (false apostles, 11:13, #85) — High. The entire genuine/false apostleship doctrine rests on one adjectival qualifier (dag); structurally analogous to a single-point-of-failure risk.
9. tej lus cog tseg tshiab/qub (covenant, ch. 3, #53) — High. The largest missing-vocabulary/structural gap in the book (unilateral grace-covenant vs. bilateral oath-custom); risk is comprehension-collapse of the entire New-Covenant-versus-Old doctrine’s legal logic, not merely a word-choice error.
10. kev tsis muaj zog / kev qaug zog (weakness, #90) — High, distinct risk-type. The only entry on this ranked list whose competing frame is honor-shame social structure rather than traditional religion; ranked here because Paul’s rhetorical strategy in chs. 10-13 depends entirely on this term being heard as a deliberate paradox rather than an admission of shameful inadequacy.
11. tus/tej raug tsim dua ua tus tshiab (new creation, 5:17, #64) — Critical, but near-miss rather than direct collision. Ranked below the above because the competing frame (ua neeb kho, restoration) is a near-miss analogy rather than a directly opposing doctrine, but still ranked highly because it is the doctrinal peak of the core passage.
12. Xatas disguise motif (angel of light, #86; messenger of Satan, #89) — High. Genuine teaching bridge to Hmong deceptive-spirit narratives, but risk of dilution into generic trickster-folklore if the singular-adversary identity is not reinforced at every occurrence.
13. Khetos nyob hauv koj / nyob hauv Khetos bidirectional formula (#93/#35) — Medium-High. Risk is conceptual fragmentation into two doctrines rather than one; lower severity than items above because it is a comprehension/systematization risk rather than a collision with a competing belief system.
14. txiaj ntsim in the giving-context extension (chs. 8-9, #10) — Critical by inheritance, elevated context. The underlying prohibition (never koob hmoov) is unchanged from the Romans baseline, but ranked here because the specific subject matter (material generosity) is exactly the domain where the forbidden substitute is most tempting and most native-sounding.
15. Godly vs. worldly grief (7:9-10, #74) — Medium, culturally dense. Ranked lowest of the flagged items because it is a comprehension/register risk rather than a doctrinal collision, but flagged for its density given the elaborateness of Hmong mourning custom, which could otherwise absorb this distinction into ritual-correctness categories rather than a theological (repentance vs. despair) one.

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E. Full-Chapter Coverage Confirmation

Per the full-book-coverage mandate, every chapter of 2 Corinthians has contributed to this gap analysis, either as a source of a newly-fenced crowded-neighborhood item, a genuinely missing-vocabulary item, or a ranked ambiguity:

• Ch. 1: comfort/affliction pair (§A.3), seal/guarantee (§A.3), mercy/grace distinction (inherited, §A.1 adjacent) — reviewed.
• Ch. 2: fragrance of Christ, peddlers of God’s word, Satan/forgiveness (§A.5, §A.8, §B.2) — reviewed.
• Ch. 3: covenant, letter/Spirit, veil, transformed-glory (§A.4, ranked item 9) — reviewed.
• Ch. 4: servant/slave reuse, outer/inner man, do-not-lose-heart (§A.1, §A.3 adjacent) — reviewed.
• Ch. 5 (core passage): reconciliation density, new creation, made-to-be-sin, fear of the Lord, kata sarka, ambassador, tent/dwelling, judgment seat (§A.1, §A.2, §A.5 — ranked items 1-7) — reviewed, primary focus.
• Ch. 6: temple of the living God/idol pairing, unequally yoked, adoption-daughters extension (§A.1, §A.4 — ranked item 3) — reviewed.
• Ch. 7: godly/worldly grief, repentance, zeal, comfort recurrence (§A.3 — ranked item 15) — reviewed.
• Ch. 8: grace-in-giving, fellowship/partnership, equality, eagerness (§A.6, §B.1.7) — reviewed.
• Ch. 9: sowing/reaping, cheerful giver, firstfruits reuse, righteousness-as-fruit (§A.6) — reviewed.
• Ch. 10: weapons of warfare, strongholds, flesh (evaluative sense), obedience of Christ, self-comparison (§A.7, §A.8, §B.1.1) — reviewed.
• Ch. 11: false apostles, super-apostles, angel of light, weakness introduced (§A.8, §A.7 — ranked items 8, 12) — reviewed.
• Ch. 12: thorn in the flesh, messenger of Satan, third heaven/paradise, power-in-weakness paradox (§A.7 — ranked item 6, transliteration §C) — reviewed.
• Ch. 13: Christ in you, examine yourselves, holy kiss, closing Trinitarian benediction (§A.2, §B.1.6 — ranked item 13) — reviewed.

No chapter has been silently omitted. This analysis, together with analysis/08_core_glossary.md and assets/bible_term_registry.json, forms the complete Phase 1 linguistic foundation for subsequent Phase 1 steps (doctrine risk registry, semantic analysis, and eventual Phase 2 AI translation requirements) for the Hmong 2 Corinthians Language Package.