Paragraph 3:10–11

3:10

The crowds asked him: In the Greek text, the phrase that the Berean Standard Bible translates as The crowds asked him comes at the beginning of this verse. Some versions, such as the New International Version, put it at the end of the verse. Place this phrase where it is natural in your language.

The crowds: The Greek phrase that the Berean Standard Bible translates literally as The crowds is plural. (See 3:7a, where Luke also used the plural form.) In this context the phrase The crowds refers to some people in the crowd. Apparently they were people who sincerely wanted to repent.

What then should we do: In this verse the people responded to John’s warnings with a serious question. The Greek word that the Berean Standard Bible translates as then is a conjunction that indicates result. The crowd asked what they should do as a result of what John said in 3:8–10. In 3:8a, John told the crowd to show that they had truly repented. Here they asked him what they needed to do in order to show that they had repented.

Some other ways to translate this question are:

Then what should we do? (New Century Version)
-or-
So what must we do?

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