So make up your minds not to prepare beforehand to defend yourselves;
Parallel translations
- WEB Settle it therefore in your hearts not to meditate beforehand how to answer,
- KJV Settle it therefore in your hearts, not to meditate before what ye shall answer:
- BSB So make up your mind not to worry beforehand how to defend yourselves.
- NKJV Therefore settle it in your hearts not to meditate beforehand on what you will answer;
- NLT So don’t worry in advance about how to answer the charges against 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 need not anxiously rehearse their defense in advance.
Overview
Jesus relieves His followers of the burden of worrying how to answer their accusers. They are to trust rather than to plan their words in fear. This rests on confidence in God's faithful provision in the hour of trial.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 3
- Mark 13:11When they lead you away and deliver you up, don’t be anxious beforehand, or premeditate what you will say, but say whatever will be given you in that hour. For it is not you who speak, but the Holy Spirit.
- Luke 12:11–12When they bring you before the synagogues, the rulers, and the authorities, don’t be anxious how or what you will answer, or what you will say;
- Matt 10:19–20But when they deliver you up, don’t be anxious how or what you will say, for it will be given you in that hour what you will say.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Commentaries & study tools
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Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.
Christ at the center
Luke shows Jesus the Savior for all — outsiders, the poor, the nations — the one who, on the Emmaus road, opened all the Scriptures to show they were about himself.
How Luke 21:14 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.