OET OET-RV OET-LV GHT ULT UST BSB MSB BLB AICNT OEB WEBBE WMBB NET LSV FBV TCNT T4T LEB BBE Moff JPS Wymth ASV DRA YLT Drby RV SLT Wbstr KJB-1769 KJB-1611 Bshps Gnva Cvdl TNT Wycl SR-GNT UHB BrLXX BrTr Related Parallel Simple Interlinear Topics Reference Dictionary Search
InterlinearVerse GEN EXO LEV NUM DEU JOB JOS JDG RUTH 1 SAM 2 SAM PSA AMOS HOS 1 KI 2 KI 1 CHR 2 CHR PROV ECC SNG JOEL MIC ISA ZEP HAB JER LAM YNA (JNA) NAH OBA DAN EZE EZRA EST NEH HAG ZEC MAL LAO GES LES ESG DNG 2 PS TOB JDT ESA WIS SIR BAR LJE PAZ SUS BEL MAN 1 MAC 2 MAC 3 MAC 4 MAC YHN (JHN) MARK MAT LUKE ACTs YAC (JAM) GAL 1 TH 2 TH 1 COR 2 COR ROM COL PHM EPH PHP 1 TIM TIT 1 PET 2 PET 2 TIM HEB YUD (JUD) 1 YHN (1 JHN) 2 YHN (2 JHN) 3 YHN (3 JHN) REV
Luke C1 C2 C3 C4 C5 C6 C7 C8 C9 C10 C11 C12 C13 C14 C15 C16 C17 C18 C19 C20 C21 C22 C23 C24
Luke 9 V1 V4 V7 V10 V13 V16 V19 V22 V25 V28 V31 V34 V37 V40 V43 V46 V49 V52 V55 V58 V61
OET (OET-LV) But he_said to_him:
Leave the dead to_bury the dead by_themselves, but you having_gone_away, be_proclaiming the kingdom of_ the _god.
OET (OET-RV) “Leave those who are dead to bury the dead by themselves,” Yeshua said, “but you go and tell people about God’s kingdom.”
In the previous section, Luke spoke about the unwillingness of people in a Samaritan village to receive Jesus. In this Section 9:57–62, Luke told about three men who said that they were willing to follow Jesus. However, they did not understand the difficulties involved. Jesus warned each of them that it would not be easy. He told them that they must put the kingdom of God above everything else in their lives.
Some other examples of headings for this section are:
The Difficulty of Following Jesus
Three People Who Wanted To Be Jesus’ Followers
There is a parallel passage for this section in Matthew 8:19–22.
But Jesus told him, “Let the dead bury their own dead.
Jesus told him, “Let those people who are spiritually dead bury those among them who are physically dead.
Jesus said to him, “Those who do not obey God are like dead people. Let them bury those among them who have died.
But Jesus replied, “The people who do not have life with God are the ones who should bury those like them who die.
But Jesus told him, “Let the dead bury their own dead: The clause Let the dead bury their own dead is a command. Jesus commanded the man not to wait for his father’s burial. He told him to leave the work of burying the dead for dead people to do.
Of course, dead people cannot actually bury other dead people. The first word for dead that Jesus used here probably refers to those who were spiritually dead, those who did not have true life with God. The second word for dead probably refers to those who had died physically.
their own dead: The phrase their own dead would normally refer to people from their own families. However, in this context it may refer more specifically to people who are spiritually dead like them. When such people die physically and need to be buried, others who are spiritually dead should bury them.
Other ways of translating this whole clause include:
Let the people who are spiritually dead bury those in their own group who have died.
Those who do not obey God are like dead people. Let them bury those among them who have died.
Those who are already as if dead because they have no life with God, they should be the ones to bury their people who also have no life with God.
You, however, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.”
You(sing), however, are to go and preach to people about God’s reign/chieftaincy.”
But as for you,(sing) you(sing) go and announce/declare how God rules his people.”
You, however: The Greek pronoun meaning You is emphatic. It implies a contrast between what the dead people should do and what Jesus’ disciple should do. It is implied that the disciple was not one of the (spiritually) dead people and he was not to spend his time burying dead people. Another way to translate this is:
but as for you (RSV)
go and proclaim the kingdom of God: Jesus was saying here that the most important thing for that man to do was to tell people the good news about the kingdom of God.
proclaim: The Greek verb that the BSB translates as proclaim means to tell, declare, or announce to people in general. For example:
tell about (GW)
preach about (NLT)
the kingdom of God: The phrase the kingdom of God refers to God ruling over his people. This phrase was used in a similar way in 9:2 and 4:43a. See how you translated it there. See also kingdom of God in the Glossary.
Note 1 topic: figures-of-speech / metaphor
ἄφες τοὺς νεκροὺς θάψαι τοὺς ἑαυτῶν νεκρούς
(Some words not found in SR-GNT: εἶπεν Δέ αὐτῷ Ἄφες τούς νεκρούς θάψαι τούς ἑαυτῶν νεκρούς σύ δέ ἀπελθών διάγγελλε τήν Βασιλείαν τοῦ Θεοῦ)
Jesus does not mean literally that dead people will bury other dead people. Instead, the expression the dead likely refers to those who do not follow Jesus and so are spiritually dead. Alternate translation: [Let people who are not concerned about spiritual things take care of everyday matters]
Note 2 topic: figures-of-speech / nominaladj
τοὺς νεκροὺς
(Some words not found in SR-GNT: εἶπεν Δέ αὐτῷ Ἄφες τούς νεκρούς θάψαι τούς ἑαυτῶν νεκρούς σύ δέ ἀπελθών διάγγελλε τήν Βασιλείαν τοῦ Θεοῦ)
Jesus is using the adjective dead as a noun in order to indicate a group of people. Your language may use adjectives in the same way. If not, you could translate this word with an equivalent phrase. Alternate translation: [people who are dead] or [people who are not concerned about spiritual things]
Note 3 topic: figures-of-speech / abstractnouns
τὴν Βασιλείαν τοῦ Θεοῦ
(Some words not found in SR-GNT: εἶπεν Δέ αὐτῷ Ἄφες τούς νεκρούς θάψαι τούς ἑαυτῶν νεκρούς σύ δέ ἀπελθών διάγγελλε τήν Βασιλείαν τοῦ Θεοῦ)
See how you decided to translate this phrase in [4:43](../04/43.md). If it would be helpful in your language, you could express the idea behind the abstract noun kingdom with a verb such as “rule.” Alternate translation: [how God will rule]
OET (OET-LV) But he_said to_him:
Leave the dead to_bury the dead by_themselves, but you having_gone_away, be_proclaiming the kingdom of_ the _god.
OET (OET-RV) “Leave those who are dead to bury the dead by themselves,” Yeshua said, “but you go and tell people about God’s kingdom.”
Note: The OET-RV is still only a first draft, and so far only a few words have been (mostly automatically) matched to the Hebrew or Greek words that they’re translated from.
Acknowledgements: The SR Greek text, lemmas, morphology, and VLT gloss are all thanks to the CNTR.
Open Bible Data site copyright © 2023–2026 Freely-Given.org.
Python source code for creating these static pages is available on GitHub under an open licence.
For Bible data copyrights, see the details for each displayed Bible version.
The Open English Translation (OET) main site is at OpenEnglishTranslation.Bible or OET.Bible.