You are doing the works of your father.” “We are not illegitimate children,” they declared. “Our only Father is God Himself.”
Parallel translations
- WEB You do the works of your father.” They said to him, “We were not born of sexual immorality. We have one Father, God.”
- KJV Ye do the deeds of your father. Then said they to him, We be not born of fornication; we have one Father, even God.
- NKJV You do the deeds of your father.” Then they said to Him, “We were not born of fornication; we have one Father—God.”
- NASB You are doing the deeds of your father.” They said to Him, “We were not born as a result of sexual immorality; we have one Father: God.”
- NLT No, you are imitating your real father.” They replied, “We aren’t illegitimate children! God himself is our true Father.”
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
Jesus says they do the works of their true father, and they retort that God alone is their Father. The dispute over spiritual paternity reaches a turning point.
Overview
Jesus presses that their deeds reveal their real father, prompting them to claim legitimate birth and God as their only Father. Their words may also be a veiled insult about Jesus' own origins. The exchange escalates the conflict over who truly belongs to God and prepares for Jesus' startling identification of their father.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 16
- Isa 64:8But now, O LORD, You are our Father; we are the clay, and You are the potter; we are all the work of Your hand.
- John 8:44You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out his desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, refusing to uphold the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, because he is a liar and the father of lies.
- John 8:38I speak of what I have seen in the presence of the Father, and you do what you have heard from your father.”
- Isa 63:16Yet You are our Father, though Abraham does not know us and Israel does not acknowledge us. You, O LORD, are our Father; our Redeemer from Everlasting is Your name.
- Mal 2:11Judah has broken faith; an abomination has been committed in Israel and in Jerusalem. For Judah has profaned the LORD’s beloved sanctuary by marrying the daughter of a foreign god.
- Exod 4:22Then tell Pharaoh that this is what the LORD says: ‘Israel is My firstborn son,
- Jer 31:20Is not Ephraim a precious son to Me, a delightful child? Though I often speak against him, I still remember him. Therefore My heart yearns for him; I have great compassion for him,” declares the LORD.
- Mal 1:6“A son honors his father, and a servant his master. But if I am a father, where is My honor? And if I am a master, where is your fear of Me?” says the LORD of Hosts to you priests who despise My name. “But you ask, ‘How have we despised Your name?’
- Deut 14:1You are sons of the LORD your God; do not cut yourselves or shave your foreheads on behalf of the dead,
- Isa 57:3–7“But come here, you sons of a sorceress, you offspring of adulterers and prostitutes!
- Jer 3:19Then I said, ‘How I long to make you My sons and give you a desirable land, the most beautiful inheritance of all the nations!’ I thought you would call Me ‘Father’ and never turn away from following Me.
- Deut 32:6Is this how you repay the LORD, O foolish and senseless people? Is He not your Father and Creator? Has He not made you and established you?
- Hos 2:2–5Rebuke your mother, rebuke her, for she is not My wife, and I am not her husband. Let her remove the adultery from her face and the unfaithfulness from between her breasts.
- Hos 1:2When the LORD first spoke through Hosea, He told him, “Go, take a prostitute as your wife and have children of adultery, because this land is flagrantly prostituting itself by departing from the LORD.”
- Ezek 23:45–47But righteous men will sentence them to the punishment of those who commit adultery and bloodshed, because they are adulteresses with blood on their hands.
- Ezek 16:20–21You even took the sons and daughters you bore to Me and sacrificed them as food to idols. Was your prostitution not enough?
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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 8:41 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
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