10:28a

I give them eternal life: The word I refers to Jesus. Here he began to use less figurative language and say directly that he will cause them to live eternally. Instead of referring to Jesus’ sheep (as in 10:27a), them refers directly to those that the sheep represent, his people. It may be necessary to make this change explicit in some way. For example:

I give them, ⌊my people,⌋ eternal life
-or-
I give eternal life to them/those ⌊who are my people⌋

eternal life: This phrase refers to the new spiritual life that God gives us when we believe in Jesus. This life will never end. See the note at 3:15 and how you translated this phrase there. Here are some other ways to translate this phrase:

forever life ⌊from God⌋
-or-

⌊spiritual⌋ life that never ends
-or-
living forever ⌊with God⌋

and: The Greek conjunction that the Berean Standard Bible translates as and here introduces a second idea in this sentence. The two ideas say the same thing, one in a positive way and the other in a negative way. It may be possible to not translate this conjunction explicitly. For example:

and I give them eternal life. They will never be lost…. (God’s Word)

they will never perish: This clause is more literally “they will not ever die through the age⌊s⌋ .” It indicates that Jesus’ people, those who follow him, will not perish through all the ages to come. It is a strong expression indicating that Jesus’ people will never know, through all eternity, being apart from God. Emphasize this idea in a way that is natural in your language. See also how you translated the word “perish” in 3:16. For example:

through all eternity they will not die

General Comment on 10:28a

The two clauses “I give them eternal life” and “they will never perish” refer to the same event or situation. Jesus indicated that he would cause his people to live forever spiritually. He said this in two ways for emphasis. In some languages it may be natural to combine these clauses into one, emphasizing the statement in a different way. For example:

I will cause them to live forever without ever dying.
-or-
I will keep them from ever perishing, for all eternity.

10:28b

No one can snatch them out of My hand: The phrase My hand is a figure of speech referring to Jesus himself. There is no one anywhere who can take his people away from him. Consider if this figure of speech will be clear and natural in your language. Here is one way to explain this figure of speech:

no one will snatch them from my care (Revised English Bible)

snatch: To snatch is to grab or take something violently from someone against their will. Here is another way to translate this word:

steal (New Century Version)

© 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.