Marvel not, my brethren, if the world hate you.
Parallel translations
- WEB Don’t be surprised, my brothers, if the world hates you.
- BSB So do not be surprised, brothers, if the world hates you.
- NKJV Do not marvel, my brethren, if the world hates you.
- NASB Do not be surprised, brothers and sisters, if the world hates you.
- NLT So don’t be surprised, dear brothers and sisters, if the world hates you.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Believers should not be surprised when the world hates them. Hostility from the world is to be expected.
Overview
Drawing on the Cain example, John tells his readers not to marvel if the world hates them, just as Cain hated Abel. The world's enmity toward the righteous is a recurring reality. Rather than being unsettled, believers can take such hatred as confirmation of their identity as God's children in a hostile world.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 17
- John 15:18–19If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you.
- John 17:14I have given them thy word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.
- Luke 21:17And ye shall be hated of all men for my name’s sake.
- Jas 4:4Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.
- 2 Tim 3:12Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.
- Luke 6:22Blessed are ye, when men shall hate you, and when they shall separate you from their company, and shall reproach you, and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of man’s sake.
- Mark 13:13And ye shall be hated of all men for my name’s sake: but he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.
- John 16:33These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.
- John 7:7The world cannot hate you; but me it hateth, because I testify of it, that the works thereof are evil.
- Eccl 5:8If thou seest the oppression of the poor, and violent perverting of judgment and justice in a province, marvel not at the matter: for he that is higher than the highest regardeth; and there be higher than they.
- Matt 24:9Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name’s sake.
- Rom 8:7Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.
- Matt 10:22And ye shall be hated of all men for my name’s sake: but he that endureth to the end shall be saved.
- John 16:2They shall put you out of the synagogues: yea, the time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service.
- Acts 3:12And when Peter saw it, he answered unto the people, Ye men of Israel, why marvel ye at this? or why look ye so earnestly on us, as though by our own power or holiness we had made this man to walk?
- John 3:7Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again.
- Rev 17:7And the angel said unto me, Wherefore didst thou marvel? I will tell thee the mystery of the woman, and of the beast that carrieth her, which hath the seven heads and ten horns.
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Christ at the center
Jesus is the Word of life made manifest, the propitiation for our sins, the Son in whom is eternal life — 'that you may know that you have eternal life.'
How 1 John 3:13 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Greek word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.