6:26a–c

Truly, truly, I tell you, it is not because you saw these signs that you are looking for Me, but because you ate the loaves and had your fill: Jesus was rebuking the people for thinking that food was more important than spiritual things. They were more interested in getting food than in understanding the meaning and importance of Jesus’ miracle/sign. In your translation, try to imply that Jesus was rebuking the people.

Here are other translation examples:

I tell you the truth, you aren’t looking for me because you saw me do miracles. You are looking for me because you ate the bread and are satisfied. (New Century Version)
-or-
Believe me…you are looking for me now not because you saw my signs but because you ate that food and had all you wanted. (Phillips’ New Testament in Modern English)

This sentence is a comment about the reasons for people’s actions. In some languages it may be natural to state the reasons that people had before stating the reasons that they did not have. For example:

I am telling you the truth: you are looking for me because you ate the bread and had all you wanted, not because you understood my miracles. (Good News Translation)

In some languages you may need to put the cause of an action before the action itself. For example:

The truth is that you ate all the bread that you wanted, so now you are looking for me. You are not looking for me because you saw the signs that I did.

Consider how speakers of your language talk about reasons for doing something. It may be natural to include a rhetorical question. For example:

So why were you looking for me? It was not because you saw signs. It was because you ate as much bread as you wanted!

Truly, truly, I tell you: This phrase emphasizes what Jesus was about to say. See the notes on 1:51a, where the same phrase is used.

you ate the loaves and had your fill: This clause means that the people had as much bread to eat as they wanted. See 6:11e and 6:12a.

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