John Chapter 8 verse 39 Holy Bible

ASV John 8:39

They answered and said unto him, Our father is Abraham. Jesus saith unto them, If ye were Abraham's children, ye would do the works of Abraham.
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BBE John 8:39

In answer they said to him, Our father is Abraham. Jesus said to them, If you were Abraham's children you would do what Abraham did.
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DARBY John 8:39

They answered and said to him, Abraham is our father. Jesus says to them, If ye were Abraham's children, ye would do the works of Abraham;
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KJV John 8:39

They answered and said unto him, Abraham is our father. Jesus saith unto them, If ye were Abraham's children, ye would do the works of Abraham.
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WBT John 8:39


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WEB John 8:39

They answered him, "Our father is Abraham." Jesus said to them, "If you were Abraham's children, you would do the works of Abraham.
read chapter 8 in WEB

YLT John 8:39

They answered and said to him, `Our father is Abraham;' Jesus saith to them, `If children of Abraham ye were, the works of Abraham ye were doing;
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Pulpit Commentary

Pulpit CommentaryVerse 39. - They answered and said. If the second interpretation be accepted, then, irritated by the suggestion that "the Father" whose properties and claims he saw and revealed to them was different from "the father" whose nature and ways they "heard" and practised, and counting, moreover, on the concession of the fact that they were Abraham's "seed," they cried, Our father is Abraham; we are spiritually, ethically, related to him, and if we are doing that which we have heard from our father, then we can claim that all we are doing is along the lines of our Abrahamic dignity. But if ver. 38 be regarded as a final expostulation, according to the first of the interpretations of ποιεῖτε, then the Jews merely disclosed their determination to misapprehend the plain words of the Divine Lord, and when he was reminding them of the Father, of their Father, they at once stood back upon their hereditary pride, and declared that they were doing the works of their great ancestor. Jesus saith to them, If ye are Abraham's children, as you say - for the position of "children" is involved in the idea and claim of spiritual Fatherhood which ye boast - then, with such spiritual and ethical relations as these, ye would do the works of Abraham - works of faith; you would be open to the access of spiritual revelations with childlike simplicity; you would have accepted the heavenly voice; you would have known whence it came; you would have resembled him in his moral sensitiveness, in his gentle loving kindness, in his victorious faith; but -

Ellicott's Commentary

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(39) They answered and said unto him, Abraham is our father.--They feel the meaning which has not yet been expressed (comp. John 8:44), and claim the descent from Abraham which He has already allowed (John 8:37).If ye were Abraham's children, ye would do the works of Abraham.--Almost all the better MSS. read, "If ye are," for "If ye were." This must mean, "If ye are Abraham's children--but the supposition is excluded, for ye would do the works of Abraham, and this is opposed to fact." They are the physical seed of the patriarch, but they are not the ethical children, for the true child would bear the moral impress of the father which would be seen in his works. The thought of the previous verse is again present here.The distinction between "seed" and "children" is another instance of an idea which meets us in this section, and was developed in the writings of St. Paul. (Comp. Romans 9:7 et seq.)