7:9a
He went on to say: The Greek phrase that the Berean Standard Bible translates as He went on to say here introduces more things that Jesus said. You should introduce these words of Jesus in a way that is natural in your language. For example:
Then he said (New Living Translation)
-or-
He also said to them (NET Bible)
-or-
He added (God’s Word)
7:9b
You neatly set aside the command of God: The Greek phrase that the Berean Standard Bible translates as neatly is a figure of speech. It means the opposite of what it says. Jesus was being sarcastic as he rebuked the proud Jewish leaders for doing wrong.
Here are some other ways to translate this:
• Use words that keep the sarcasm. For example:
You have a clever way of rejecting God’s law (Good News Bible)
• Omit the figure of speech. For example:
You set aside the commands of God
-or-
You reject God’s laws (New Living Translation, 1996 edition)
• Translate the meaning of the figure of speech. For example:
You are foolish to reject God’s law
-or-
You are doing wrong when you reject God’s commands
set aside the command of God: The Greek word that the Berean Standard Bible translates as set aside also means “reject” or “ignore.” This word refers to the way the Pharisees and teachers of the law rejected and disobeyed God’s commands. For example:
You cleverly ignore the commands of God (New Century Version)
-or-
You reject God’s laws (New Living Translation, 1996 edition)
7:9c
to maintain your own tradition: When you translate the verb maintain, you should use a verb that naturally goes with the word tradition. For example:
so that you can follow your own teachings (Contemporary English Version)
-or-
in order to keep your own traditions (God’s Word)
tradition: The Greek word that the Berean Standard Bible translates as tradition means “those things that are taught or commanded which are passed on from one generation to another.”
© 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.