So don’t be surprised, dear brothers and sisters, if the world hates you.
Parallel translations
- WEB Don’t be surprised, my brothers, if the world hates you.
- KJV Marvel not, my brethren, if the world hate 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.
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 hates you, you know that it has hated me before it hated you.
- John 17:14I have given them your word. The world hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.
- Luke 21:17You will be hated by all men for my name’s sake.
- Jas 4:4You adulterers and adulteresses, don’t you know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.
- 2 Tim 3:12Yes, and all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution.
- Luke 6:22Blessed are you when men shall hate you, and when they shall exclude and mock you, and throw out your name as evil, for the Son of Man’s sake.
- Mark 13:13You will be hated by all men for my name’s sake, but he who endures to the end, the same will be saved.
- John 16:33I have told you these things, that in me you may have peace. In the world you have oppression; but cheer up! I have overcome the world.”
- John 7:7The world can’t hate you, but it hates me, because I testify about it, that its works are evil.
- Eccl 5:8If you see the oppression of the poor, and the violent taking away of justice and righteousness in a district, don’t marvel at the matter: for one official is eyed by a higher one; and there are officials over them.
- Matt 24:9Then they will deliver you up to oppression, and will kill you. You will be hated by all of the nations for my name’s sake.
- Rom 8:7because the mind of the flesh is hostile towards God; for it is not subject to God’s law, neither indeed can it be.
- Matt 10:22You will be hated by all men for my name’s sake, but he who endures to the end will be saved.
- John 16:2They will put you out of the synagogues. Yes, the time comes that whoever kills you will think that he offers service to God.
- Acts 3:12When Peter saw it, he responded to the people, “You men of Israel, why do you marvel at this man? Why do you fasten your eyes on us, as though by our own power or godliness we had made him walk?
- John 3:7Don’t marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born anew.’
- Rev 17:7The angel said to me, “Why do you wonder? I will tell you the mystery of the woman, and of the beast that carries her, which has the seven heads and the 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.