All the people who heard this, even the tax collectors, acknowledged God’s justice. For they had received the baptism of John.
Parallel translations
- WEB When all the people and the tax collectors heard this, they declared God to be just, having been baptized with John’s baptism.
- KJV And all the people that heard him, and the publicans, justified God, being baptized with the baptism of John.
- NKJV And when all the people heard Him, even the tax collectors justified God, having been baptized with the baptism of John.
- NASB When all the people and the tax collectors heard this, they acknowledged God’s justice, having been baptized with the baptism of John.
- NLT When they heard this, all the people—even the tax collectors—agreed that God’s way was right, for they had been baptized by John.
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
The common people and tax collectors, having received John's baptism, acknowledged God's justice. Those who repented affirmed the rightness of God's ways.
Overview
Those who had submitted to John's baptism of repentance vindicated God by receiving His messenger and His call. Even despised tax collectors responded rightly, while the religious elite did not. This highlights that humble repentance, not status, prepares the heart to receive God's saving work in Christ.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 12
- Luke 3:12Even tax collectors came to be baptized. “Teacher,” they asked, “what should we do?”
- Luke 7:35But wisdom is vindicated by all her children.”
- Matt 21:31–32Which of the two did the will of his father?” “The first,” they answered. Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God before you.
- Matt 3:5–6People went out to him from Jerusalem and all Judea and the whole region around the Jordan.
- Acts 18:25He had been instructed in the way of the Lord and was fervent in spirit. He spoke and taught accurately about Jesus, though he knew only the baptism of John.
- Rom 10:3Because they were ignorant of God’s righteousness and sought to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness.
- Acts 19:3“Into what, then, were you baptized?” Paul asked. “The baptism of John,” they replied.
- Rev 16:5And I heard the angel of the waters say: “Righteous are You, O Holy One, who is and was, because You have brought these judgments.
- Ps 51:4Against You, You only, have I sinned and done what is evil in Your sight, so that You may be proved right when You speak and blameless when You judge.
- Rev 15:3and they sang the song of God’s servant Moses and of the Lamb: “Great and wonderful are Your works, O Lord God Almighty! Just and true are Your ways, O King of the nations!
- Judg 1:7Then Adoni-bezek said, “Seventy kings with their thumbs and big toes cut off have gathered the scraps under my table. As I have done to them, so God has repaid me.” And they brought him to Jerusalem, where he died.
- Rom 3:4–6Certainly not! Let God be true and every man a liar. As it is written: “So that You may be proved right when You speak and victorious when You judge.”
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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 7:29 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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