John 8:34
New International Version
Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, everyone who sins is a slave to sin.

New Living Translation
Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave of sin.

English Standard Version
Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin.

Berean Standard Bible
Jesus replied, “Truly, truly, I tell you, everyone who sins is a slave to sin.

Berean Literal Bible
Jesus answered them, "Truly, truly, I say to you that everyone practicing the sin is a slave of the sin.

King James Bible
Jesus answered them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin.

New King James Version
Jesus answered them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin.

New American Standard Bible
Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave of sin.

NASB 1995
Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin.

NASB 1977
Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin.

Legacy Standard Bible
Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin.

Amplified Bible
Jesus answered, “I assure you and most solemnly say to you, everyone who practices sin habitually is a slave of sin.

Christian Standard Bible
Jesus responded, “Truly I tell you, everyone who commits sin is a slave of sin.

Holman Christian Standard Bible
Jesus responded, “I assure you: Everyone who commits sin is a slave of sin.

American Standard Version
Jesus answered them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Every one that committeth sin is the bondservant of sin.

Aramaic Bible in Plain English
Yeshua said to them: “Timeless truth I speak to you: Whoever commits sin is a servant of sin.”

Contemporary English Version
Jesus replied: I tell you for certain that anyone who sins is a slave of sin!

Douay-Rheims Bible
Jesus answered them: Amen, amen I say unto you: that whosoever committeth sin, is the servant of sin.

English Revised Version
Jesus answered them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Every one that committeth sin is the bondservant of sin.

GOD'S WORD® Translation
Jesus answered them, "I can guarantee this truth: Whoever lives a sinful life is a slave to sin.

Good News Translation
Jesus said to them, "I am telling you the truth: everyone who sins is a slave of sin.

International Standard Version
Jesus answered them, "Truly, I tell all of you emphatically, that everyone who commits sin is a slave of sin.

Literal Standard Version
Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who is committing sin, is a servant of sin,

Majority Standard Bible
Jesus replied, “Truly, truly, I tell you, everyone who sins is a slave to sin.

New American Bible
Jesus answered them, “Amen, amen, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave of sin.

NET Bible
Jesus answered them, "I tell you the solemn truth, everyone who practices sin is a slave of sin.

New Revised Standard Version
Jesus answered them, “Very truly, I tell you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin.

New Heart English Bible
Jesus answered them, "Truly I tell you, everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin.

Webster's Bible Translation
Jesus answered them, Verily, verily, I say to you, Whoever committeth sin, is the servant of sin.

Weymouth New Testament
"In most solemn truth I tell you," replied Jesus, "that every one who commits sin is the slave of sin.

World English Bible
Jesus answered them, “Most certainly I tell you, everyone who commits sin is the bondservant of sin.

Young's Literal Translation
Jesus answered them, 'Verily, verily, I say to you -- Every one who is committing sin, is a servant of the sin,

Additional Translations ...
Audio Bible



Context
The Truth will Set You Free
33“We are Abraham’s descendants,” they answered. “We have never been slaves to anyone. How can You say we will be set free?” 34 Jesus replied, “Truly, truly, I tell you, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. 35A slave is not a permanent member of the family, but a son belongs to it forever.…

Cross References
Romans 6:16
Do you not know that when you offer yourselves as obedient slaves, you are slaves to the one you obey, whether you are slaves to sin leading to death, or to obedience leading to righteousness?

2 Peter 2:19
They promise them freedom, while they themselves are slaves to depravity. For a man is a slave to whatever has mastered him.


Treasury of Scripture

Jesus answered them, Truly, truly, I say to you, Whoever commits sin is the servant of sin.

Verily.

John 3:3
Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

Matthew 5:18
For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.

Whosoever.

1 Kings 21:25
But there was none like unto Ahab, which did sell himself to work wickedness in the sight of the LORD, whom Jezebel his wife stirred up.

Proverbs 5:22
His own iniquities shall take the wicked himself, and he shall be holden with the cords of his sins.

Acts 8:23
For I perceive that thou art in the gall of bitterness, and in the bond of iniquity.

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Bondman Bondservant Commits Committeth Committing Evil Jesus Practises Servant Sin Slave Solemn Truth Verily
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Bondman Bondservant Commits Committeth Committing Evil Jesus Practises Servant Sin Slave Solemn Truth Verily
John 8
1. Jesus delivers the woman taken in adultery.
12. He declares himself the light of the world, and justifies his doctrine;
31. promises freedom to those who believe;
33. answers the Jews who boasted of Abraham;
48. answers their reviling, by showing his authority and dignity;
59. and slips away from those who would stone him.














(34) Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin.--The Cambridge MS. and some of the Fathers omit the words "of sin"; but this is clearly to avoid the difficulty of the connection of thought, and they must be regarded as an integral part of the text.

Committeth sin.--The Greek word is a present participle, expressing the continuance of the deeds of sin. It means, not simply the committing individual sins, from which no man is free, but the state of the life which is sinful; the state which is opposed to doing the will of the Father, and is expressed in other words as "working iniquity" (Matthew 7:21; Matthew 7:23.) The truth is taught in the generality of a well-known maxim, but it has for them a special application. They claimed to be Abraham's seed, and therefore free. Let their lives decide the question of their freedom. He could appeal (John 8:28-29) to a perfect harmony with the divine will, and therefore had a perfect freedom. For many of them the voice of conscience must have spoken in terrible words, and must have revealed the chain which had bound them, hand and foot, in the slavery of sin.

Is the servant of sin.--The word means bondservant, or slave. It has been rendered by "bondman," and this brings out the connection of the word with that for "was in bondage," in the last verse.

It is striking that we have this same thought in the letters of both St. Paul and St. Peter. (See margin.)

Verse 34. - Jesus answered them; i.e. those "Jews who believed him," but whose retort showed their faith to be of the most feeble and imperfect kind, and which, if it were momentarily assumed, was ready to disappear at the first touch of trial. A promise of Divine love had been treated by them as an insult, not so much to their national history, as to their religious triumph over their civil and political disasters. There is no reason to believe that in these, or in the following words, the unbelieving Jews had once more become the interlocutors, as Tholuck and Hengstenberg have done on different grounds. Meyer, Ellicott, Lange, and many others agree with the view here advanced. The answer to them (αὐτοῖς, those who were the subjects of ἀπεκρίθησαν) is introduced with peculiar solemnity: Verily, verily I say unto you, every one (πᾶς) that doeth sin - ὁ ποιῶν ἁμαρτίαν is different from πράσσων φαῦλα of John 3:20; it is the precise opposite of ποιῶν ἀλήθειαν of John 3:21, and does not mean "everyone who committeth separate acts of transgression," but it means "everyone who is living a life of sin" - is the bond slave (of sin). Godet is strongly disposed, on the ground of the exceedingly small authority of D and b alone (and certain quotations of Origen), to believe that the τῆς ἁμαρτίας is a gloss. Certainly the whole passage would be easier to interpret if our Lord had simply said that the man under the habitual power of sin is a slave, and had then, in vers. 35 and 36, advanced to the contrast between the slave and the Son. But there is great unanimity among all the authorities as to the accuracy of the Received and Revised Texts, though Westcott and Hort place it in brackets. The interpretation, consequently, is simply this, that Christ did "pass from the idea of bondage under sin to that of bondage generally, and from the idea of sonship to the Son" (Westcott). The notion of personal transgression producing a bondage, and enfettering the soul and the will, and separating it from the glorious liberty of true sonship, lay outside of their notion of discipleship. They were not requiring deliverance from sin or its bondage; what they wanted was the full realization of the national hope. The language of this verse can be paralleled from the writings of the classics and rabbis, and is largely handled by St. Paul (Romans 6. and 7.). The relation between sin as a principle and sins as acts of the will is a great New Testament revelation. The personal commission of sin augments the force of the corrupt tendency which leads to and facilitates fresh transgression. Every compliance with evil forges a new fetter, and imposes it on the will of the transgressor. "The strong man guards his house, and his goods are in peace" (Luke 11:21).

Parallel Commentaries ...


Greek
Jesus
Ἰησοῦς (Iēsous)
Noun - Nominative Masculine Singular
Strong's 2424: Of Hebrew origin; Jesus, the name of our Lord and two other Israelites.

replied,
Ἀπεκρίθη (Apekrithē)
Verb - Aorist Indicative Passive - 3rd Person Singular
Strong's 611: From apo and krino; to conclude for oneself, i.e. to respond; by Hebraism to begin to speak.

“Truly,
Ἀμὴν (Amēn)
Hebrew Word
Strong's 281: Of Hebrew origin; properly, firm, i.e. trustworthy; adverbially, surely.

truly,
ἀμὴν (amēn)
Hebrew Word
Strong's 281: Of Hebrew origin; properly, firm, i.e. trustworthy; adverbially, surely.

I tell
λέγω (legō)
Verb - Present Indicative Active - 1st Person Singular
Strong's 3004: (a) I say, speak; I mean, mention, tell, (b) I call, name, especially in the pass., (c) I tell, command.

you,
ὑμῖν (hymin)
Personal / Possessive Pronoun - Dative 2nd Person Plural
Strong's 4771: You. The person pronoun of the second person singular; thou.

everyone
πᾶς (pas)
Adjective - Nominative Masculine Singular
Strong's 3956: All, the whole, every kind of. Including all the forms of declension; apparently a primary word; all, any, every, the whole.

who
(ho)
Article - Nominative Masculine Singular
Strong's 3588: The, the definite article. Including the feminine he, and the neuter to in all their inflections; the definite article; the.

sins
ἁμαρτίαν (hamartian)
Noun - Accusative Feminine Singular
Strong's 266: From hamartano; a sin.

is
ἐστιν (estin)
Verb - Present Indicative Active - 3rd Person Singular
Strong's 1510: I am, exist. The first person singular present indicative; a prolonged form of a primary and defective verb; I exist.

a slave
δοῦλός (doulos)
Noun - Nominative Masculine Singular
Strong's 1401: (a) (as adj.) enslaved, (b) (as noun) a (male) slave. From deo; a slave.

to
τῆς (tēs)
Article - Genitive Feminine Singular
Strong's 3588: The, the definite article. Including the feminine he, and the neuter to in all their inflections; the definite article; the.

sin.
ἁμαρτίας (hamartias)
Noun - Genitive Feminine Singular
Strong's 266: From hamartano; a sin.


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NT Gospels: John 8:34 Jesus answered them Most certainly I tell (Jhn Jo Jn)
John 8:33
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