Paragraph 15:10–11
15:10a
This verse begins a new part of the story. In some languages, it may be more natural to begin this paragraph with a time word. For example:
Then (Good News Translation)
-or-
After that
Jesus called the crowd to Him: The Greek word that the Berean Standard Bible translates as called also means “summon, ask (someone) to come.” Jesus invited the people who had been listening to gather around him. He did this because he wanted to talk to them.
Here are some other ways to translate this clause:
Jesus called the crowd together (Contemporary English Version)
-or-
Jesus told the crowd of people to gather around him
the crowd: When Jesus was talking with the Pharisees and scribes in 15:1–9, other people were standing around listening. Here Jesus began to speak directly to these people.
15:10b
Listen and understand: The expression Listen and understand indicates that:
(a) Jesus intended to say something important to the crowd.
(b) He strongly urged the people to listen carefully to what he said and understand it.
Listen means “concentrate on what I am saying.” The word understand emphasizes that everyone should think carefully about the meaning of what Jesus was about to say.
Use an expression in your language that people say when they want others to give careful attention and think about the meaning of what they hear. For example:
Pay attention and try to understand what I mean. (Contemporary English Version)
-or-
Listen and understand what I am saying (New Century Version)
This clause refers to the things that Jesus was about to say. Your translation should indicate that Jesus was referring to something that he was going to say. He is not talking about something that he had already said.
© 2023 by SIL International®
Made available under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License (CC BY-SA) creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0.
All Scripture quotations in this publication, unless otherwise indicated, are from The Holy Bible, Berean Standard Bible.
BSB is produced in cooperation with Bible Hub, Discovery Bible, OpenBible.com, and the Berean Bible Translation Committee.