I am telling you the truth is the same emphatic formula first used in 1.51 (see there).

In the first sentence of this verse, the clause Good News Translation renders remains no more than a single grain (literally “remains alone”) comes last, but Good News Translation places it first to achieve a more natural English sentence structure. New English Bible translates this clause “a grain of wheat remains a solitary grain,” and New American Bible “it remains just a grain of wheat.”

The verb rendered is dropped in Good News Translation is literally “falls.” But since the focus is on dying, it sounds more natural in English to speak of a grain of wheat being dropped, rather than of its falling into the ground. Dropped suggests purpose, while falls may suggest an accidental happening. The passive expression it is dropped into the ground must be made active in some languages, for example, “unless someone drops it into the ground and lets it die.” However, in some languages the process of dropping grain into the ground is expressed in a special sense of “planting grain in the ground” or “placing grain in the ground.”

A serious problem is involved in understanding this passage if it is translated literally if it does die. Obviously, if a grain really dies, it produces no fruit at all. However, it is difficult to remove the figure of speech involved in dying, as it may be necessary in some languages to translate “if it does, as it were, die” or “if it dies, so to speak.”

Many grains is literally “much fruit.” But when speaking of a grain harvest, one does not speak of “much fruit” but of “much grain” or “many grains.” Perhaps it should be noted that the word rendered wheat may refer either to wheat in particular or to grain in general (it is used in the parable of the weeds, Matt 13.25). As indicated in the introductory remarks to this section, the reference is to the death of Jesus, which makes possible the gathering in of the Gentile believers.

Quoted with permission from Newman, Barclay M. and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on the Gospel of John. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1980. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .