Paragraph 10:17–18

Jesus explained clearly that he was going to die and then live again. This was what the Father commanded.

10:17a

The reason the Father loves Me is that I lay down My life: These clauses indicate that the Father loves the Son because the Son is willing to die. It is implied that the Son is willing to die for his people, his sheep. That is what he said in 10:11 and 10:15. Here are other ways to translate these clauses:

The Father loves me because I am willing to give up my life (Good News Translation)

the Father: This phrase refers to God who is Jesus’ Father.

lay down My life: This phrase means “willingly die” or “allow others to kill me.” See how you translated this phrase in 10:11 and 10:15. For example:

I give my life (God’s Word)
-or-
I sacrifice my life (New Living Translation (2004))
-or-
I will allow others to kill me

10:17b

in order to take it up again: This phrase indicates that Jesus died with the purpose of taking up his life (getting it back) again. His purpose in dying was to live again. That was not his only purpose, because he mainly died to save people, but it was an additional purpose. Here is another way to translate this phrase:

so that I may receive it back again (Contemporary English Version)

it: The word it refers to Jesus’ life. It may be more natural to translate this using a verb. For example:

in order that I might live again
-or-
so that I will then become alive again

© 2020 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.