Translation commentary on John 8:11

In some languages it is not sufficient to say No one. Such an expression must be combined with a verb, for example, “There is no one who condemns me” or “No one remains to condemn me.”

Sir may be taken either as a form of polite address (as in Good News Translation and most other translations) or with the Christian meaning of “Lord” (Revised Standard Version). In the present context the evidence for sir seems conclusive.

Well, then is a transitional device, but the force of this expression is implicit in Jesus’ response to the woman. That is, his words represent a response to the situation in which the accusers of the woman have left.

Go translates a Greek imperative; New English Bible and New American Bible translate “You may go.”

In the Greek text the command do not sin again has some built-in redundancy: “from now on no longer sin.” Most translations, like Good News Translation, combine the force of “from now on” and “no longer.” New English Bible has the same expression as Good News Translation and Jerusalem Bible has “don’t sin any more.” Moffatt maintains the two adverbial expressions, “and never sin again.” Some translators take the command do not sin again as a specific reference to the sin of adultery and so render “avoid this sin” (New American Bible).

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 .

SIL Translator’s Notes on John 8:11

8:11a

No one: The pronoun No one indicates that none of the men who accused the woman had remained to condemn and punish her. Translate this in a way that is a natural response to the question in 8:10c. For example:

None of them
-or-
No (Contemporary English Version)
-or-
Yes, that is so.
-or-
No one has condemned me.

Lord: The Greek word that the Berean Standard Bible translates literally as Lord was a polite way to address a man. See 5:7a, where the same word is used, although the Berean Standard Bible translates it as “Sir.” Place this word in the sentence where it is natural in your language.

8:11b

Then neither do I condemn you: This clause indicates that Jesus refused to condemn the woman to death. He did not say that the woman had not sinned, but neither did he say that she should die. It is implied that he forgave her instead.

8:11c

Now go: This verb phrase is a command that gave permission to the woman to leave and go home. She was free to go. Here is another way to translate this phrase:

You may go

and sin no more: The clause that the Berean Standard Bible translates as sin no more means “stop sinning.” It implies that the woman was in fact guilty of the sin that they accused her of. However, it does not imply that she had sinned in this way regularly or as a habit.

Here are other ways to translate this clause:

don’t sin anymore (Contemporary English Version)
-or-
do not sin again (New Revised Standard Version)

© 2020 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.