19. For your obedience--that is, tractableness
is come abroad unto all. I am glad therefore on your behalf--"I
rejoice therefore over you," seems the true reading.
but yet I would have you wise unto that which is good, and
simple--"harmless," as in
Mt 10:16,
from which the warning is taken.
concerning--"unto"
evil--"Your reputation among the churches for subjection to the
teaching ye have received is to me sufficient ground of confidence in
you; but ye need the serpent's wisdom to discriminate between
transparent truth and plausible error, with that guileless simplicity
which instinctively cleaves to the one and rejects the other."
JFB.
Picture Study Bible