²¹So he said to them again, “I am going away, and you will seek me and will die in your sin. Where I am going you cannot come!” ²²Then the Jews began to say,^* “Perhaps he will kill himself, because he is saying, ‘Where I am going you cannot come.’ ” ²³And he said to them, “You are from below; I am from above. You are from this world; I am not from this world. ²⁴Thus I said to you that you will die in your sins. For if you do not believe that I am he, you will die in your sins.”

²⁵So they began to say to him,^* “Who are you?” Jesus said to them, “What^m I have been saying to you from the beginning. ²⁶I have many things to say and to judge concerning you, but the one who sent me is true, and the things which I heard from him, these things I say to the world.” ²⁷(They did not know that he was speaking to them about the Father.)

²⁸Then Jesus said,ⁿ “When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will recognize that I am he, and I do nothing from myself, but just as the Father taught me, I say these things. ²⁹And the one who sent me is with me. He has not left me alone, because I always do the things that are pleasing to him.” ³⁰While^* he was saying these things, many believed in him.

The Truth Will Set You Free

³¹Then Jesus said to those Jews who had believed him, “If you continue in my word you are truly my disciples, ³²and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” ³³They replied to him, “We are descendants of Abraham and have not been enslaved to anyone at any time. How do you say, ‘You will become free’?” ³⁴Jesus replied to them, “Truly, truly I say to you, that everyone who commits sin is a slave of sin. ³⁵And the slave does not remain in the household forever;^o the son remains forever.^p ³⁶So if the son sets you free, you will be truly free. ³⁷I know that you are descendants of Abraham. But you are seeking to kill me, because my word makes no progress among you. ³⁸I speak the things that I have seen with the Father; so also you do the things that you have heard from the Father.”

The Priority of Jesus Over Abraham

³⁹They answered and said to him, “Abraham is our father!” Jesus said to them, “If you are children of Abraham, do the deeds of Abraham! ⁴⁰But now you are seeking to kill me, a man who spoke to you the truth which I heard from God. This Abraham did not do. ⁴¹You are doing the deeds of your father!”

They said^q to him, “We were not born from sexual immorality! We have one father, God!” ⁴²Jesus said to them, “If God were your father, you would love me, for I have come forth from God and have come. For I have not come from myself, but that one sent me. ⁴³Why^r do you not understand my way of speaking? Because you are not able to listen to my message. ⁴⁴You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father! That one was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand firm in the truth, because truth is not in him. Whenever he speaks the lie, he speaks from his own nature,^* because he is a liar and the father of lies.^s ⁴⁵But because I am telling the truth, you do not believe me.

Read in Logos

John 8:32: and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free…

Footnotes

*The imperfect tense has been translated as ingressive here (“began to say”)
*The imperfect tense has been translated as ingressive here (“began to say”)
mLiterally “that which”
nSome manuscripts have “said to them”
*Here “while” is supplied as a component of the temporal genitive absolute participle (“was saying”)
oLiterally “for the age”
pLiterally “for the age”
qSome manuscripts have “Then they said”
rLiterally “because of what”
*The word “nature” is not in the Greek text but is implied
sLiterally “of it”