SIL Translator's Notes on Mark 14:31

14:31a

But: The Greek conjunction that the Berean Standard Bible translates as But introduces how Peter responded to what Jesus said in 14:30. In this response, Peter contradicted what Jesus had just said. Connect these two verses in a natural way in your language.

Peter kept insisting: The Greek phrase that the Berean Standard Bible translates as Peter kept insisting is literally “very emphatically he was saying.” The tense of the Greek verb indicates that Peter insisted repeatedly that he would not disown Jesus. (English versions do not reflect the sense of the Greek imperfect here, but many commentaries mention that the imperfect indicates that Peter objected repeatedly.)

Here are some other ways to translate this:

But Peter kept saying even more insistently
-or-
But Peter strengthened his words all the more, and replied to Jesus:
-or-
Peter did not agree with that, and he said repeatedly

14:31b

Even if I have to die with You, I will never deny You: In this part of the verse, Peter indicated emphatically that he was ready to be killed along with Jesus. He said that he would never desert Jesus and say that he did not know him.

Here are some other ways to translate this:

Even if I have to die with you, I will never say that I don’t know you. (God’s Word)
-or-
I will never say that, even if I have to die with you! (Good News Bible)

General Comment on 14:31a–b

In many languages it is necessary to express the idea “insisted emphatically” (31a) within the direct quote (31b). For example:

But Peter said, “Never! Even if I have to die with you, I will never disown you.”
-or-
“Unthinkable!” Peter exclaimed. “I would rather die with you than disown you!”

14:31c

And all the others said the same thing: The words And all the others said the same indicate that all the other disciples also said that they, too, would never deny Jesus.

said the same thing: You may add what the other disciples said. You may use direct or indirect speech. For example:

Each of the others also said: “I will never deny you either.”
-or-
Each of the others also said that he would never deny him/Jesus.

© 2008 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.

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