I know you are Abraham’s descendants may be equivalent to “I recognize that you are Abraham’s descendants” or “… that you have descended from Abraham” or “… that Abraham was your ancestor.”

In the expression you are trying to kill me, the pronoun you includes all the persons Jesus is addressing; Phillips tries either to soften the words of Jesus or to make this verse fit with verse 31 by rendering “some of you,” but this distinction has no basis in the Greek text.

Because you will not accept my teaching is more literally “because my word finds no place in you” (Revised Standard Version). New English Bible translates “because my teaching makes no headway with you” (see Moffatt); Jerusalem Bible “because nothing I say has penetrated into you”; and New American Bible “because my word finds no hearing among you.” To speak of a word or a teaching as not “having room” in someone is simply another way of saying that that person will not accept the word or the teaching. The restructuring of Good News Translation is an attempt to simplify this rather difficult Greek construction.

Because you will not accept my teaching may be rendered “because you will not believe what I have taught you” or “because you will not follow what I have taught.” One may in some languages translate “… obey what I have taught.”

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 .