Exegesis:

su ‘you’ is emphatic: ‘you yourself,’ ‘even you.’

sēmeron tautē tē nukti ‘today, in this very night’: the ‘today’ of the phrase would last until sunset the following day; ‘this very night’ defines even more precisely the period of ‘today’ in which the denial would occur – it would be before sunrise.

prin (14.72) ‘before.’

dis alektora phōnēsai ‘the cock to crow twice.’ At least three explanations are given of this phrase: (1) the words are to be taken literally, of the crowing of a cock, before dawn, with the suggestion that ‘twice’ refers to a second crowing of a cock in response to the first one; (2) the phrase refers to the bugle call, known as the gallicinium, which sounded the end of the third watch of the night (the ‘cock-crowing’ watch which ended at 3:00 A.M. – cf. 13.35), when the guard was changed; (3) the expression simply means ‘before dawn’ (for which there is support in classical usage – cf. Rawlinson). On the other hand, F. C. Grant suggests that the words are a proverbial expression indicating not time, but readiness to betray, ‘before the cock can crow twice.’ From vv. 68 and 72, however, it appears certain that the author intends that the words be taken literally (cf. Branscomb).

aparnēsē (cf. 8.34) ‘you will deny,’ ‘you will disown’: here with the sense of refusing to admit knowledge of, or relation to, Jesus.

Translation:

For truly in this type of construction see 3.28 and 8.12.

This very night should be related to what follows, not to what precedes. This may require an adjustment in order, e.g. ‘before the cock crows twice, you will this very night deny me three times.’

In some translations the Greek phrase has been rendered literally as ‘today, this night,’ resulting in obvious difficulties in languages in which the words for ‘day’ and ‘night’ are mutually exclusive in meaning. Note, however, that in the N.T. the word sēmeron refers to the twenty-four hour period, and hence there is no contradiction. In other languages the equivalent can be expressed by ‘this very night,’ ‘just on this night,’ or ‘during exactly this night.’

Since chickens are widely distributed throughout the world, there is very little difficulty in obtaining satisfactory terms for ‘cock’ and ‘crowing.’ However ‘when the fowl called cock makes an early noise’ can suffice where chickens are not known.

Deny is most commonly translated as ‘say that you do not know me.’ Tzeltal renders the expression as ‘cover in your heart that you know me.’ In instances in which direct discourse is required, one may translate ‘say, I do not know him.’

Quoted with permission from Bratcher, Robert G. and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on the Gospel of Mark. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1961. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .