Core Glossary
Core Glossary — 2 John (English → Nepali)
This glossary compiles every load-bearing theological term identified in 07_semantic_analysis.md, covering the entire book of 2 John (1:1–13; the book has only one chapter). Terms already fixed in the baseline Romans translation_memory.json reuse the recorded Nepali rendering exactly and are marked “Reused.” Terms not present in the baseline are marked “New” and are proposed here for addition to translation memory, with risk tier and grounded cultural/doctrinal rationale, consistent with the baseline’s method.
Risk tiers follow the baseline’s doctrine_risk_registry.json definitions: Critical (essential doctrine at stake; human theologian review required for every occurrence), High (significant syncretism/confusion risk; human theologian review required), Medium (clarity risk, meaning preserved; native speaker review recommended), Low (minor imprecision; automated review sufficient).
Terms Reused Exactly from Baseline Romans Translation Memory
| English Term | Greek Original | Nepali Rendering | Risk | 2 John Occurrences | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grace | χάρις (charis) | अनुग्रह | High | 1:3 | Reused exactly. Part of grace-mercy-peace triad; see ἔλεος (new) for the distinct “mercy” term alongside it. |
| Peace | εἰρήνη (eirēnē) | शान्ति | Medium | 1:3 | Reused exactly. Relational peace, not meditative calm. |
| God | θεός (theos) | परमेश्वर | Critical | 1:9 | Reused exactly. Never भगवान. |
| Father | πατήρ (patēr) | पिता | Critical | 1:3, 1:4, 1:9 | Reused exactly. |
| Son (of God) | υἱός (huios) / υἱὸς τοῦ πατρός | परमेश्वरका पुत्र (contextually “पुत्र” in pronominal use) | Critical | 1:3, 1:9 | Reused exactly. Never देवपुत्र. Grammatically parallel with the Father in 1:3, reinforcing Deity of Christ. |
| Jesus | Ἰησοῦς (Iēsous) | येशू | Critical | 1:7 | Reused exactly. |
| Christ | Χριστός (Christos) | ख्रीष्ट | Critical | 1:3, 1:7, 1:9 | Reused exactly, as the name-form of “Jesus Christ” (per the AI requirements’ transliteration standards), distinct from the doctrinal title मसीह (Messiah), which is not the operative sense in 2 John’s usage. |
| Fellowship (root; positive sense) | κοινωνία / κοινωνέω (koinōnia / koinōneō) | सहभागिता (positive) / सहभागी हुनु (verbal, negative sense — see New Terms) | Low (positive) / Medium-High (negative, v.11) | 1:11 (verbal, negative sense) | Baseline noun reused for the positive sense; the negative verbal usage in v.11 (“shares in his evil works”) is a new flagged extension — see New Terms table. |
New Terms Proposed for Translation Memory (2 John-Specific)
| English Term | Greek Original | Transliteration | Nepali Rendering | Doctrine Category | Risk | 2 John Occurrences | Rationale / Collision Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Truth | ἀλήθεια | alētheia | सत्य | Walking in Truth and Love | High | 1:1(x2), 1:2, 1:3, 1:4 | सत्य is the established Nepali Bible term (e.g., John 14:6), but it is simultaneously the central term of Hindu philosophical/Gandhian moral vocabulary (सत्य, सत्याग्रह), denoting an impersonal cosmic-order absolute rather than truth revealed in and identified with the person of Christ. Occurs five times in 13 verses — the letter’s dominant motif — so this collision recurs constantly and must be anchored to Christ at each occurrence. |
| Love | ἀγάπη / ἀγαπάω | agapē / agapaō | प्रेम | Walking in Truth and Love | High | 1:1, 1:3, 1:5, 1:6 | प्रेम is the established Nepali Bible term (John 3:16), but the natural colloquial alternative माया is a homophone/cognate of Sanskrit māyā (Hindu cosmic-illusion doctrine). माया must never be substituted for प्रेम in doctrinal contexts, on the same logic the baseline already applies to अनुग्रह vs. पुण्य for “grace.” |
| Commandment | ἐντολή | entolē | आज्ञा | Walking in Truth and Love / Obedience | Medium-High | 1:4, 1:5(x1 “new commandment”), 1:6(x2) | Must not collapse into व्यवस्था (the baseline’s High-risk term reserved for the Mosaic Law) nor be read as legalistic duty; here it is the Father’s relational charge to love, received “from the beginning.” |
| Walk (conduct oneself) | περιπατέω | peripateō | हिँड्नु / जीवन बिताउनु | Perseverance in the Teaching of Christ | Medium | 1:4, 1:6(x2) | Figurative “conduct of life”; must not drift toward a meditative “path” (मार्ग) framing borrowed from Hindu/Buddhist liberation-path vocabulary. |
| Deceiver | πλάνος | planos | छली | Warning against Deceivers Denying the Incarnation | High | 1:7(x2) | Must convey deliberate, active spiritual deception (not honest error); central to the letter’s core warning doctrine. |
| Antichrist | ἀντίχριστος | antichristos | ख्रीष्ट-विरोधी | Warning against Deceivers Denying the Incarnation | Critical | 1:7 | Direct doctrinal antithesis to the baseline’s Critical Sonship/Deity/Incarnation doctrines. Must carry full weight of denying Christ’s incarnate person, not merely “a bad teacher”; bare transliteration (एन्टिक्राइस्ट) would be opaque to first-generation readers with low prior denominational vocabulary. |
| Flesh / coming in the flesh | σάρξ / ἐρχόμενον ἐν σαρκί | sarx / erchomenon en sarki | शरीर / शरीरमा देहधारण गरी आउनु | Warning against Deceivers Denying the Incarnation (Incarnation) | Critical | 1:7 | Directly extends the baseline’s Critical Incarnation doctrine (देहधारण; NEVER अवतार). 2 John 1:7 is the NT’s most explicit incarnation-denial warning text; must never drift toward अवतार-flavored language given Nepal’s living memory of Shah-dynasty royal avatar theology. |
| Confess | ὁμολογέω | homologeō | स्विकार गर्नु / अंगीकार गर्नु | Warning against Deceivers Denying the Incarnation | High | 1:7 | Parallels the baseline’s Critical “Jesus is Lord” confession pattern (Rom 10:9). Must carry the force of binding public testimony, not mere private opinion or casual assertion. |
| World | κόσμος | kosmos | संसार | Warning against Deceivers Denying the Incarnation | Medium | 1:7 | Johannine sense: the morally-charged sphere of organized unbelief, not merely the neutral physical globe; needs contextual anchoring to avoid flattening. |
| Teaching (of Christ) / doctrine | διδαχή | didachē | शिक्षा (ख्रीष्टको शिक्षा) | Perseverance in the Teaching of Christ | High | 1:9(x2), 1:10 | Risk of being received within the guru-shishya framework (multiple valid teachers/paths) common to Hindu and Buddhist religious culture in Nepal. Must consistently qualify as “the teaching of Christ” specifically, an exclusive, singular apostolic body of teaching, not one path among many. |
| Abide / remain | μένω | menō | रहनु | Perseverance in the Teaching of Christ | High | 1:2, 1:9(x2) | Johannine relational-continuance term (cf. John 15). Must not be rendered with Buddhist meditative-abiding vocabulary (ध्यानमा रहनु), which would reframe covenantal fidelity as a contemplative technique rather than relational communion with a personal God. |
| Go beyond / go ahead (of the teaching) | προάγω | proagō | अगि बढ्नु (नकारात्मक भावमा) | Perseverance in the Teaching of Christ | High | 1:9 | Critical cultural-collision flag: Nepali Hindu/Buddhist spiritual vocabulary treats “advancing/progressing” (उन्नति, प्रगति) in spiritual attainment as uniformly positive (stages of enlightenment, tantric initiation degrees, progress toward moksha). 2 John 1:9 condemns this “going ahead” as apostasy, not growth; rendering must not allow the verse to be misheard as praising spiritual advancement. |
| Reward | μισθός | misthos | प्रतिफल | Perseverance in the Teaching of Christ | Medium-High | 1:8 | Risk of being read through the shared Hindu/Buddhist karma-merit framework (कर्मफल); must be anchored to the existing grace-vs-merit distinction already established for Romans 4:4–5 and 11:5–6 so as not to reintroduce works-righteousness. |
| Receive into (one’s) house / hospitality | λαμβάνω εἰς οἰκίαν | lambanō eis oikian | घरमा (नराख्नु) | Hospitality and Doctrinal Discernment | Medium | 1:10 | Without careful framing, risks being heard as a general call to inhospitality, clashing with strongly held Nepali cultural hospitality values (अतिथि सत्कार); must be understood as a narrowly scoped doctrinal-discernment boundary regarding false teachers of Christ’s person specifically. |
| Greeting formula (“Greetings!“) | χαίρειν (λέγειν) | chairein (legein) | अभिवादन (गर्नु) | Hospitality and Doctrinal Discernment | Medium | 1:10, 1:11 | A conventional, quasi-legitimating public greeting formula, not mere private courtesy; withholding it is a deliberate doctrinal act, not rudeness. Needs contextual framing to avoid reading as ordinary bad manners. |
| Share in / partake in (negative sense) | κοινωνέω | koinōneō | सहभागी हुनु (नकारात्मक अर्थमा) | Hospitality and Doctrinal Discernment | Medium-High | 1:11 | Shares its root with the baseline’s Low-risk, positively-connoted सहभागिता (fellowship). Here used negatively (“shares in his evil works”); translators must not default to the baseline’s warm positive connotation and inadvertently soften this warning. |
| Evil works / deeds | ἔργα πονηρά | erga ponēra | दुष्ट कामहरू | Hospitality and Doctrinal Discernment | Medium | 1:11 | Must remain forceful, not softened to a generic “bad things”; names doctrinal corruption itself as morally evil. |
| Elder (self-designation of the author) | πρεσβύτερος | presbyteros | प्राचीन | (Authorial identity; supports all four core doctrines) | Medium | 1:1 | Must avoid any term suggesting a Hindu ascetic elder/guru figure or caste-linked village-elder authority; प्राचीन reflects established Nepali NT usage for the church-elder office. |
| Elect lady (addressee) | ἐκλεκτῇ κυρίᾳ | eklektē kyria | चुनिएकी महिला (or transliterated proper name) | (Authorial/audience identity) | Medium-High (interpretive) | 1:1, 1:5 | Interpretive ambiguity (literal woman vs. personified local church) affects application of the hospitality instructions. Must never be rendered with vocabulary drawn from प्रभु (Lord), despite κυρία’s shared root with κύριος — this is a purely human address, not a Christological title. |
| Elect / chosen (adjective, fem.) | ἐκλεκτή | eklektē | चुनिएकी | (Supports Divine Calling / Election background doctrine) | Medium | 1:1, 1:13 | Must not be over-theologized into the baseline’s full election noun-phrase doctrine (परमेश्वरको छनोट) in every occurrence, since it functions here as a personal honorific, not a developed soteriological argument. |
| Children | τέκνον / τέκνα | teknon / tekna | सन्तान / छोराछोरी | Hospitality and Doctrinal Discernment / Christian Fellowship | Medium | 1:1, 1:4, 1:13 | Ambiguous between literal offspring and members of a house-church community; affects the corporate scope of the letter’s hospitality warnings. |
| Mercy | ἔλεος | eleos | दया | (Salutation triad; supports Grace doctrine) | Medium | 1:3 | Must remain conceptually distinct from अनुग्रह (grace = unmerited favor) — दया emphasizes compassion toward the needy/guilty, completing the grace-mercy-peace triad without collapsing its three distinct emphases. |
| Beginning | ἀρχή | archē | सुरुदेखि / आदिदेखि | Perseverance in the Teaching of Christ | Low | 1:5, 1:6 | Marks continuity with original apostolic teaching; minor risk only. |
| Forever / eternity | αἰών (εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα) | aiōn | सदासर्वदा / अनन्तकालसम्म | Walking in Truth and Love (truth’s permanence) | Low-Medium | 1:2 | Should avoid phrasing suggestive of a repeating “age” (युग) cycle; linear unending future intended, consistent with the baseline’s existing caution against cyclical Hindu/Buddhist cosmological framing. |
| Joy | χαρά / χαίρω | chara / chairō | आनन्द (noun) / आनन्दित हुनु (verb) | Christian Fellowship | Low | 1:4 (verb), 1:12 (noun) | Standard vocabulary; no significant collision risk. |
| Sister | ἀδελφή | adelphē | बहिनी / दिदी | Christian Fellowship | Low | 1:13 | Kinship term; contextually likely literal, with a possible secondary “sister-congregation” resonance parallel to κυρία. |
| Mouth to mouth (idiom: face to face) | στόμα πρὸς στόμα | stoma pros stoma | आमनेसामने | Christian Fellowship | Low-Medium (idiom) | 1:12 | Idiom-handling: literal rendering would sound strange in Nepali; natural equivalent आमनेसामने required, per standing idiom-handling rule. |
Risk Summary for 2 John New Terms
| Risk Tier | Count (New Terms) | Review Routing |
|---|---|---|
| Critical | 2 (Antichrist; Flesh/coming in the flesh) | Human theologian — every occurrence |
| High | 8 (Truth; Love; Deceiver; Confess; Teaching; Abide; Go beyond/ahead; and Commandment at the high end of its Medium-High rating) | Human theologian |
| Medium-High | 4 (Commandment; Reward; Elect lady/κυρία; Share in [negative sense]) | Human theologian (treated as High for routing purposes per baseline’s “when in doubt, escalate” convention) |
| Medium | 9 (Walk; World; Receive into house; Greeting formula; Evil works; Elder; Elect/chosen; Children; Mercy) | Native speaker review |
| Low / Low-Medium | 6 (Beginning; Forever/eternity; Joy; Sister; Mouth to mouth idiom) | Automated review, except idiom flagged for light native-speaker check |
Reused baseline terms retain their original risk tiers and routing exactly as fixed in doctrine_risk_registry.json.
Critical Risk Terms
God
Approved rendering: परमेश्वर
Transliteration: Parameshwar
Doctrine: Deity of Christ
Rejected alternatives: भगवान
Original: θεός
Category: God
CRITICAL: never भगवान. This word carries unusually strong state-identity weight in Nepal, which was constitutionally declared the world’s only Hindu Kingdom until 2007. परमेश्वर is the settled, neutral Nepali Christian standard. Inherited from Romans package. In 2 John 1:9, ‘does not have God’ is the direct consequence of failing to abide in the teaching of Christ, making this term’s precision here doctrinally load-bearing.
Father
Approved rendering: पिता
Transliteration: Pita
Doctrine: Adoption into God’s Family
Original: πατήρ
Category: God
God as personal Father. Inherited from Romans package. In 2 John 1:4, God the Father is the source of the commandment to love; in 1:3 and 1:9, पिता is placed grammatically alongside ख्रीष्ट as an equal co-source of grace, mercy, and peace, and as one ‘had’ only by those who abide in the Son’s teaching — reinforcing Deity of Christ and Sonship of Christ, not only the Adoption doctrine of its original Romans context.
Son Of God
Approved rendering: परमेश्वरका पुत्र
Transliteration: Parameshwarka Putra
Doctrine: Sonship of Christ
Rejected alternatives: देवपुत्र
Original: υἱὸς τοῦ πατρός / υἱός
Category: Christology
CRITICAL: full phrase required. देवपुत्र (‘son of a deva’) wrongly places Christ within a Hindu/Buddhist pantheon of lesser divine or celestial beings. Inherited from Romans package. In 2 John 1:9, denial of ‘the Son’ (used pronominally, without the full compound phrase, but carrying the same doctrinal weight) is named as the very mark of the antichrist; the established Critical rendering must govern this pronominal use by context even when the full compound is not repeated in every clause.
Jesus
Approved rendering: येशू
Transliteration: Yeshu
Doctrine: Lordship of Christ
Original: Ἰησοῦς
Category: Christology
CRITICAL: established Nepali Christian standard form across all major Nepali Bible translations. Inherited from Romans package. In 2 John 1:7, ‘Jesus Christ coming in the flesh’ is the specific confession whose denial marks a teacher as deceiver and antichrist — the letter’s doctrinal center of gravity.
Incarnation
Approved rendering: देहधारण
Transliteration: dehadharan
Doctrine: Incarnation
Rejected alternatives: अवतार
Original: ἐρχόμενον ἐν σαρκί (cf. John 1:14’s ὁ λόγος σὰρξ ἐγένετο)
Category: Christology
CRITICAL: NEVER use अवतार, given the Shah-dynasty kings’ living-avatar veneration within recent memory. Inherited from Romans package. 2 John 1:7 (‘Jesus Christ coming in the flesh’) is the New Testament’s single most explicit incarnation-denial warning text — the highest-stakes occurrence of this doctrine anywhere in this curriculum pipeline. Must be rendered via the fixed compound शरीरमा देहधारण गरी आउनु; mandatory theologian review at every occurrence, no exception.
Lord
Approved rendering: प्रभु
Transliteration: prabhu
Doctrine: Lordship of Christ
Rejected alternatives: मालिक, ईश्वर
Established Nepali Christian term conveying exclusive, supreme Lordship. Inherited from Romans package. 2 John never applies this title to Christ directly in its text, but the letter’s address term κυρία (‘lady,’ 1:1, 1:5) shares a Greek root with κύριος. Translators must never let the human honorific चुनिएकी महिला (elect_lady, new term below) drift toward प्रभु-derived vocabulary; doing so would wrongly parallel a human addressee with Christ’s exclusive Lordship, a Critical-tier doctrinal confusion distinct from, but as serious as, the baseline’s other Critical safeguards.
Antichrist
Approved rendering: ख्रीष्ट-विरोधी
Transliteration: Khrist-virodhi
Doctrine: Warning against Deceivers Denying the Incarnation
Rejected alternatives: एन्टिक्राइस्ट
Original: ἀντίχριστος
Category: Christology
New — introduced by 2 John (1:7); Critical tier assigned. Must carry the full doctrinal weight of one who denies Christ’s incarnate person, not merely ‘a bad religious teacher’ or ‘a rival prophet.’ A bare transliteration (एन्टिक्राइस्ट) would be opaque to first-generation readers with low prior denominational vocabulary. ख्रीष्ट-विरोधी makes the ‘against Christ’ sense transparent while avoiding any unintended placement of Christ within a pantheon of contesting divine figures, the same risk the baseline already guards against for देवपुत्र. Mandatory theologian review, every occurrence.
Christ
Approved rendering: ख्रीष्ट
Transliteration: Khrist
Doctrine: Deity of Christ
Rejected alternatives: मसीह (in this function)
Original: Χριστός
Category: Christology
New entry for translation memory, though ख्रीष्ट is already listed as an established transliteration-standard proper-name form in the AI translation requirements document. Added here as a discrete term because 2 John uses Χριστός both as part of the compound proper name ‘Jesus Christ’ (1:3, 1:7) and in the phrase ‘the teaching of Christ’ (1:9), distinct in function from the doctrinal title मसीह (Messiah, used for Old Testament fulfillment emphasis elsewhere in the pipeline). ख्रीष्ट (not मसीह) is correct throughout 2 John.
High Risk Terms
Grace
Approved rendering: अनुग्रह
Transliteration: anugraha
Doctrine: Grace
Rejected alternatives: कृपा, पुण्य, भाग्य
Original: χάρις
Category: Salvation
Unmerited favor apart from human merit. पुण्य (accumulated religious merit, shared vocabulary of both Nepali Hindu and Buddhist ethics) directly contradicts this. कृपा may be used for general compassion in non-soteriological contexts only. Inherited from Romans package. In 2 John 1:3, अनुग्रह opens the grace-mercy-peace salutation triad (‘grace, mercy, and peace… from God the Father and from Jesus Christ’). Must remain conceptually distinct from दया (mercy, new term below) so the triad’s three separate emphases are not collapsed into synonyms.
Election
Approved rendering: परमेश्वरको छनोट
Transliteration: Parameshwarko chhanot
Doctrine: Effectual Calling
Rejected alternatives: भाग्य, किस्मत
God’s sovereign, personal choice; not karma-determined fate. Inherited from Romans package. 2 John uses a related but grammatically distinct adjective, ἐκλεκτή (‘elect/chosen’), as a personal honorific for the letter’s addressee and her sister (1:1, 1:13). This full doctrinal noun-phrase must NOT be forced onto every occurrence of the adjective; see the new terms elect_lady and elect_chosen below, which carry a lighter honorific sense in this letter’s salutation context.
Truth
Approved rendering: सत्य
Transliteration: satya
Doctrine: Walking in Truth and Love
Original: ἀλήθεια
Category: Truth
New — introduced by 2 John. सत्य is the established Nepali Bible rendering (e.g., John 14:6), but it is simultaneously the central term of Hindu philosophical and Gandhian moral vocabulary (सत्य, सत्याग्रह, सत्युग), denoting an impersonal cosmic-order absolute attainable through ascetic discipline. In 2 John ἀλήθεια recurs five times in thirteen verses (1:1 x2, 1:2, 1:3, 1:4) — the letter’s dominant motif — so this collision must be actively fenced at every occurrence by anchoring truth to the person of Christ and to apostolic teaching, never left as a free-standing abstraction.
Love
Approved rendering: प्रेम
Transliteration: prem
Doctrine: Walking in Truth and Love
Rejected alternatives: माया
Original: ἀγάπη / ἀγαπάω
Category: Love
New — introduced by 2 John. प्रेम is the established Nepali Bible term (John 3:16) and must be used exclusively in doctrinal contexts throughout 2 John (1:1, 1:3, 1:5, 1:6). माया, the natural colloquial word for ‘love’ in everyday speech, is a homophone/cognate of Sanskrit māyā, the Hindu Vedantic doctrine of cosmic illusion — using it here would risk hearers importing an ‘unreal/illusory’ connotation into precisely the verses defining covenantal, self-giving love. Parallels the baseline’s existing अनुग्रह-vs-पुण्य discipline for grace.
Commandment
Approved rendering: आज्ञा
Transliteration: agya
Doctrine: Walking in Truth and Love
Rejected alternatives: व्यवस्था
Original: ἐντολή
Category: Love
New — introduced by 2 John. Must never collapse into व्यवस्था, the baseline’s High-risk term reserved exclusively for the Mosaic Law, nor be read as legalistic duty performed to earn standing. In 2 John (1:4, 1:5, 1:6 x2) this is the Father’s relational charge to love one another, received ‘from the beginning’ — inseparable from love, not a new legal code.
Deceiver
Approved rendering: छली
Transliteration: chhali
Doctrine: Warning against Deceivers Denying the Incarnation
Rejected alternatives: गलत शिक्षक
Original: πλάνος
Category: Warning Against False Teaching
New — introduced by 2 John. Must convey deliberate, active spiritual deception, not honest theological error. A weak rendering such as ‘wrong teacher’ (गलत शिक्षक) would understate the letter’s severity in 1:7, where deceivers are named alongside the title antichrist.
Flesh
Approved rendering: शरीर
Transliteration: sharir
Doctrine: Warning against Deceivers Denying the Incarnation
Original: σάρξ
Category: Christology
New — introduced by 2 John (1:7), functioning within the fixed compound शरीरमा देहधारण गरी आउनु (‘coming in the flesh’). Standing alone, शरीर is a neutral term for the physical body carrying lower independent risk than the compound incarnation phrase, but must be checked at each occurrence for drift toward avatar-descent language when paired with देहधारण or its surrounding verbs.
Confess
Approved rendering: स्विकार गर्नु / अंगीकार गर्नु
Transliteration: swikar garnu / angikar garnu
Doctrine: Warning against Deceivers Denying the Incarnation
Rejected alternatives: भन्नु
Original: ὁμολογέω
Category: Christology
New — introduced by 2 John (1:7). Directly parallels the baseline’s Critical Lordship confession pattern (Romans 10:9, येशू प्रभु हुनुहुन्छ). A weak translation (‘say,’ भन्नु) would lose the sense of binding public testimony; failure to make this confession regarding Christ’s incarnation is itself the mark of deception in this verse.
Teaching Of Christ
Approved rendering: शिक्षा (ख्रीष्टको शिक्षा)
Transliteration: shiksha (Khristko shiksha)
Doctrine: Perseverance in the Teaching of Christ
Original: διδαχή
Category: Perseverance
New — introduced by 2 John (1:9 x2, 1:10). A bare शिक्षा risks being received within the guru-shishya (teacher-disciple) framework common to Hindu and Buddhist religious culture in Nepal, where multiple gurus offer competing, equally valid paths. Must consistently be qualified as ख्रीष्टको शिक्षा, an exclusive, singular body of apostolic teaching, never a bare, unqualified ‘teaching’ that could denote any teacher’s instruction.
Abide
Approved rendering: रहनु
Transliteration: rahanu
Doctrine: Perseverance in the Teaching of Christ
Rejected alternatives: ध्यानमा रहनु
Original: μένω
Category: Perseverance
New — introduced by 2 John (1:2, 1:9 x2). Johannine relational-continuance term (cf. John 15:4-10) — persistent, living communion, not static residence. Must not be rendered with Buddhist meditative-abiding vocabulary (ध्यानमा रहनु), which would reframe covenantal fidelity to apostolic teaching as a contemplative technique achieved by the practitioner rather than relational communion sustained by, and with, a personal God. Always bind grammatically to ‘ख्रीष्टको शिक्षामा’ as its object; never leave रहनु as a free-standing verb.
Go Beyond The Teaching
Approved rendering: अगि बढ्नु (नकारात्मक भावमा)
Transliteration: agi badhnu (nakaratmak bhavma)
Doctrine: Perseverance in the Teaching of Christ
Rejected alternatives: प्रगति गर्नु, उन्नति गर्नु
Original: προάγω
Category: Perseverance
New — introduced by 2 John (1:9). Critical cultural-collision flag: Nepali Hindu and Buddhist spiritual vocabulary treats ‘advancing/progressing’ (उन्नति, प्रगति) toward higher spiritual attainment — stages of enlightenment, tantric initiation degrees, progress toward moksha across lifetimes — as uniformly positive. Unmarked प्रगति/उन्नति vocabulary would invert this verse’s meaning, making it sound like praise rather than a warning against apostasy. Must be rendered with an obligatory negating/critical grammatical frame at every occurrence (e.g., ‘jo koi … bhandai agi badhcha’ structured so the clause cannot read as commendation).
Reward
Approved rendering: प्रतिफल
Transliteration: pratiphal
Doctrine: Reward for Faithful Perseverance
Rejected alternatives: कर्मफल
Original: μισθός
Category: Perseverance
New — introduced by 2 John (1:8). Nepal’s shared Hindu/Buddhist karma-merit framework (कर्मफल — the fruit one’s own actions produce toward one’s own liberation) makes ‘reward’ language especially prone to being heard as merit-accumulation. Must always be anchored to the existing grace-vs-merit distinction already established for Romans 4:4-5 and 11:5-6, lest 2 John 1:8 appear to reintroduce works-righteousness into a letter otherwise built on grace, mercy, and peace ‘from God.‘
Share In Evil Works
Approved rendering: सहभागी हुनु (नकारात्मक अर्थमा)
Transliteration: sahabhagi hunu (nakaratmak arthama)
Doctrine: Hospitality and Doctrinal Discernment
Original: κοινωνέω
Category: Hospitality
New — introduced by 2 John (1:11). Shares its root with the baseline’s Low-risk, positively-connoted noun सहभागिता (fellowship, see inherited entry above). Translators may default to that warm, positive covenant-fellowship connotation and inadvertently soften this warning verse; the negative object (‘his evil works,’ दुष्ट कामहरू) must remain unmistakably attached to the verb in every rendering, never allowed to stand as a free verb that could read positively.
Elect Lady
Approved rendering: चुनिएकी महिला
Transliteration: chuniyeki mahila
Doctrine: Election and Chosen Status
Rejected alternatives: प्रभुनी, कूरिया (प्रभु-मूलक)
Original: ἐκλεκτῇ κυρίᾳ
Category: Church
New — introduced by 2 John (1:1, 1:5). κυρία shares a root with κύριος (Lord, प्रभु, Critical in the baseline). Translators must never let this term drift toward प्रभु-related vocabulary; it addresses a human woman or, on one interpretive reading, a personified local congregation — never Christ’s Lordship. A slip here would create real doctrinal confusion by implying a human ‘lord/lady’ title theologically parallel to Christ’s. Flagged High purely for this collision-avoidance reason.
Medium Risk Terms
Peace
Approved rendering: शान्ति
Transliteration: shanti
Doctrine: Peace with God
Rejected alternatives: सुख
Original: εἰρήνη
Category: Salvation
Relational peace with God through justification, not merely psychological calm or meditative equanimity. Inherited from Romans package. In 2 John 1:3, closes the grace-mercy-peace triad; must retain its relational, covenantal sense rather than reading as generic well-wishing.
Walk
Approved rendering: हिँड्नु / जीवन बिताउनु
Transliteration: hidnu / jiwan bitaunu
Doctrine: Perseverance in the Teaching of Christ
Rejected alternatives: मार्गमा हिँड्नु
Original: περιπατέω
Category: Perseverance
New — introduced by 2 John. A flat literal ‘walking’ reads oddly in Nepali; must consistently denote lived conduct (1:4, 1:6 x2), not literal locomotion. Must never drift toward मार्ग (‘path’) vocabulary borrowed from Hindu/Buddhist liberation-path frameworks, which would reframe obedience as a self-directed technique of spiritual attainment rather than lived fidelity to Christ’s teaching.
World
Approved rendering: संसार
Transliteration: sansar
Doctrine: Warning against Deceivers Denying the Incarnation
Original: κόσμος
Category: Warning Against False Teaching
New — introduced by 2 John (1:7). In Johannine usage, the morally-charged sphere of organized unbelief in opposition to God, not merely the neutral physical globe. A flattened reading of संसार as simply ‘the physical earth’ loses the sense that deceivers ‘have gone out’ into an active sphere of opposition; requires contextual anchoring at each occurrence.
Receive Into House
Approved rendering: घरमा (नराख्नु)
Transliteration: gharma (narakhnu)
Doctrine: Hospitality and Doctrinal Discernment
Original: λαμβάνω εἰς οἰκίαν
Category: Hospitality
New — introduced by 2 John (1:10). Without careful framing, risks being heard as a general call to inhospitality, clashing with the strongly held Nepali cultural value of अतिथि सत्कार. Must be scoped explicitly, every occurrence, to false teachers denying Christ’s incarnation specifically — never a general posture toward strangers, guests, or the poor.
Greeting Formula
Approved rendering: अभिवादन (गर्नु)
Transliteration: abhivadan (garnu)
Doctrine: Hospitality and Doctrinal Discernment
Original: χαίρειν (λέγειν)
Category: Hospitality
New — introduced by 2 John (1:10, 1:11). A conventional, quasi-legitimating public greeting formula, not mere private courtesy; withholding it is a deliberate doctrinal act, not rudeness. A literal ‘do not say Greetings’ could be mistaken for ordinary bad manners; must be framed as a considered refusal to legitimate false teaching.
Evil Works
Approved rendering: दुष्ट कामहरू
Transliteration: dushta kamharu
Doctrine: Hospitality and Doctrinal Discernment
Original: ἔργα πονηρά
Category: Sin
New — introduced by 2 John (1:11). Must remain forceful, not softened to a generic ‘bad things,’ since it names the deceivers’ doctrinal corruption itself as morally evil, not merely mistaken.
Elder
Approved rendering: प्राचीन
Transliteration: prachin
Doctrine: Apostolic Authority and Eldership
Rejected alternatives: सन्त, साधु, गुरु
Original: πρεσβύτερος
Category: Church
New — introduced by 2 John (1:1). The author’s self-designation as πρεσβύτερος must be rendered with प्राचीन, avoiding any term suggesting a Hindu ascetic elder/guru figure honored at national shrines (the same risk the baseline flags for सन्त/साधु under ‘saints’) or a caste-linked village-elder authority structure. प्राचीन reflects established Nepali NT usage for the churchly office and requires brief explanatory framing for first-generation readers unfamiliar with it.
Elect Chosen
Approved rendering: चुनिएकी
Transliteration: chuniyeki
Doctrine: Election and Chosen Status
Original: ἐκλεκτή
Category: Divine Calling
New — introduced by 2 John (1:1, 1:13). A descriptive honorific applied to the addressee and her sister; related to but grammatically distinct from the baseline’s full soteriological election doctrine (परमेश्वरको छनोट). Must not be over-theologized into that noun-phrase at every occurrence, since here it functions primarily as a personal honorific, nor under-translated in a way that loses any connection to God’s gracious choosing. Must also not be explained via comparison to Nepal’s Kumari (living-goddess) tradition of ritually ‘chosen’ female status.
Children
Approved rendering: सन्तान / छोराछोरी
Transliteration: santan / chhorachhori
Doctrine: Corporate Household Identity
Original: τέκνον / τέκνα
Category: Church
New — introduced by 2 John (1:1, 1:4, 1:13). Ambiguous between the addressee’s literal children and members of a house-church under her care. A purely literal rendering could obscure a likely corporate referent that materially affects the scope of the hospitality and doctrinal-discernment instructions in 1:10-11; this ambiguity should be preserved, not silently resolved, at the translation-memory level.
Mercy
Approved rendering: दया
Transliteration: daya
Doctrine: Grace, Mercy, and Peace
Original: ἔλεος
Category: Salvation
New — introduced by 2 John (1:3). Compassion shown toward one in a pitiable or needy condition, distinct from अनुग्रह’s emphasis on unmerited favor generally. दया and अनुग्रह must be kept conceptually distinct so the grace-mercy-peace triad’s three separate emphases are not collapsed into synonyms.
Low Risk Terms
Fellowship
Approved rendering: सहभागिता
Transliteration: sahabhagita
Doctrine: Christian Fellowship
Rejected alternatives: मित्रता
Original: κοινωνία
Category: Christian Fellowship
Shared participation in Christ. Inherited from Romans package. In 2 John this positive noun sense stands in deliberate contrast to the negative verbal usage of the same Greek root (κοινωνέω) in 1:11, ‘shares in his evil works.’ Never allow the warm connotation of सहभागिता (reinforced by prior Romans 8/12 tone guidance for this audience) to soften the separate, negatively-framed new term share_in_evil_works below; the two must be kept distinct in translator judgment even though they share an etymological root.
Beginning
Approved rendering: सुरुदेखि / आदिदेखि
Transliteration: surudekhi / aadidekhi
Doctrine: Perseverance in the Teaching of Christ
Original: ἀρχή
Category: Perseverance
New — introduced by 2 John (1:5, 1:6). Marks continuity with original apostolic teaching, not a later innovation. Minor risk; standard vocabulary.
Forever Eternity
Approved rendering: सदासर्वदा / अनन्तकालसम्म
Transliteration: sadasarvada / anantakalsamma
Doctrine: Eternal, Abiding Truth
Original: αἰών (εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα)
Category: Eschatology
New — introduced by 2 John (1:2). Should avoid phrasing suggestive of a repeating ‘age’ (युग) cycle drawn from Hindu cosmology or Buddhist cycles of rebirth; a linear, unending future is intended, consistent with the baseline’s existing caution against cyclical Hindu/Buddhist cosmological framing under fulfillment_of_prophecy.
Joy
Approved rendering: आनन्द / आनन्दित हुनु
Transliteration: aanand / aanandit hunu
Doctrine: Christian Fellowship and Joy
Original: χαρά / χαίρω
Category: Christian Fellowship
New — introduced by 2 John (1:4 verb form, 1:12 noun form). Relational gladness at seeing faith embodied in conduct and at fellowship completed through an in-person visit. Standard vocabulary; no significant collision risk.
Sister
Approved rendering: बहिनी / दिदी
Transliteration: bahini / didi
Doctrine: Corporate Household Identity
Original: ἀδελφή
Category: Christian Fellowship
New — introduced by 2 John (1:13). Kinship term closing the letter; contextually likely literal, with a possible secondary ‘sister-congregation’ resonance parallel to κυρία. Low doctrinal weight.
Mouth To Mouth
Approved rendering: आमनेसामने
Transliteration: aamnesamne
Doctrine: Christian Fellowship and Joy
Rejected alternatives: मुख देखि मुख
Original: στόμα πρὸς στόμα
Category: Christian Fellowship
New — introduced by 2 John (1:12). Idiom for direct, face-to-face conversation, paralleling Numbers 12:8. A literal word-for-word rendering would read as strange or faintly comic in Nepali; the natural equivalent आमनेसामने must be used per the standing idiom-handling rule that natural equivalence takes priority over literal transfer when no doctrinal content is at stake.
Referenced passages