When all the people and the tax collectors heard this, they acknowledged God’s justice, having been baptized with 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.
- BSB All the people who heard this, even the tax collectors, acknowledged God’s justice. For they had received 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.
- 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 3:12Tax collectors also came to be baptized, and they said to him, “Teacher, what must we do?”
- Luke 7:35Wisdom is justified by all her children.”
- Matt 21:31–32Which of the two did the will of his father?” They said to him, “The first.” Jesus said to them, “Most certainly I tell you that the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering into God’s Kingdom before you.
- Matt 3:5–6Then people from Jerusalem, all of Judea, and all the region around the Jordan went out to him.
- Acts 18:25This man had been instructed in the way of the Lord; and being fervent in spirit, he spoke and taught accurately the things concerning Jesus, although he knew only the baptism of John.
- Rom 10:3For being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and seeking to establish their own righteousness, they didn’t subject themselves to the righteousness of God.
- Acts 19:3He said, “Into what then were you baptized?” They said, “Into John’s baptism.”
- Rev 16:5I heard the angel of the waters saying, “You are righteous, who are and who were, you Holy One, because you have judged these things.
- Ps 51:4Against you, and you only, I have sinned, and done that which is evil in your sight; that you may be proved right when you speak, and justified when you judge.
- Rev 15:3They sang the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, “Great and marvelous are your works, Lord God, the Almighty! Righteous and true are your ways, you King of the nations.
- Judg 1:7Adoni-Bezek said, “Seventy kings, having their thumbs and their big toes cut off, scavenged under my table. As I have done, so God has done to me.” They brought him to Jerusalem, and he died there.
- Rom 3:4–6May it never be! Yes, let God be found true, but every man a liar. As it is written, “That you might be justified in your words, and might prevail when you come into judgment.”
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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
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.