(For John had not yet been thrown into prison.)
Parallel translations
- WEB For John was not yet thrown into prison.
- KJV For John was not yet cast into prison.
- NKJV For John had not yet been thrown into prison.
- NASB for John had not yet been thrown into prison.
- NLT (This was before John was thrown into prison.)
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
John notes that the Baptist had not yet been imprisoned. This locates the events early, before John's arrest.
Overview
This aside helps harmonize the timeline with the other Gospels, which report Jesus' Galilean ministry beginning after John's imprisonment. It signals that the two ministries genuinely overlapped for a time. The detail reflects the evangelist's care to anchor his narrative accurately.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 5
- Matt 4:12When Jesus heard that John had been imprisoned, He withdrew to Galilee.
- Matt 14:3Now Herod had arrested John and bound him and put him in prison on account of Herodias, his brother Philip’s wife,
- Mark 6:17For Herod himself had ordered that John be arrested and bound and imprisoned, on account of his brother Philip’s wife Herodias, whom Herod had married.
- Luke 3:19–20But when he rebuked Herod the tetrarch regarding his brother’s wife Herodias and all the evils he had done,
- Luke 9:7–9When Herod the tetrarch heard about all that was happening, he was perplexed. For some were saying that John had risen from the dead,
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Christ at the center
John declares him plainly: the eternal Word made flesh, the Lamb of God, the great 'I AM' — bread, light, door, shepherd, way, truth, life, resurrection — that you may believe and have life in his name.
How John 3:24 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.