John 1:39

1:39 Jesus ¹  answered, ²  “Come and you will see.” So they came and saw where he was staying, and they stayed with him that day. Now it was about four o’clock in the afternoon. ³ 

John 4:47

4:47 When he heard that Jesus had come back from Judea to Galilee, he went to him and begged him ⁴  to come down and heal his son, who was about to die.

John 10:12

10:12 The hired hand, ⁵  who is not a shepherd and does not own sheep, sees the wolf coming and abandons ⁶  the sheep and runs away. ⁷  So the wolf attacks ⁸  the sheep and scatters them.

John 15:6

15:6 If anyone does not remain ⁹  in me, he is thrown out like a branch, and dries up; and such branches are gathered up and thrown into the fire, ¹⁰  and are burned up. ¹¹ 

John 16:21

16:21 When a woman gives birth, she has distress ¹²  because her time ¹³  has come, but when her child is born, she no longer remembers the suffering because of her joy that a human being ¹⁴  has been born into the world. ¹⁵ 

John 20:2

20:2 So she went running ¹⁶  to Simon Peter and the other disciple whom Jesus loved and told them, “They have taken the Lord from the tomb, and we don’t know where they have put him!”

¹ tn Grk “He”; the referent (Jesus) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

² tn Grk “said to them.”

³ tn Grk “about the tenth hour.”

⁴ tn The direct object of ἠρώτα (hrwta) is supplied from context. Direct objects were frequently omitted in Greek when clear from the context.

⁷ sn Jesus contrasts the behavior of the shepherd with that of the hired hand. This is a worker who is simply paid to do a job; he has no other interest in the sheep and is certainly not about to risk his life for them. When they are threatened, he simply runs away.

⁸ tn Grk “leaves.”

⁹ tn Or “flees.”

¹⁰ tn Or “seizes.” The more traditional rendering, “snatches,” has the idea of seizing something by force and carrying it off, which is certainly possible here. However, in the sequence in John 10:12, this action precedes the scattering of the flock of sheep, so “attacks” is preferable.

¹⁰ tn Or “reside.”

¹¹ sn Such branches are gathered up and thrown into the fire. The author does not tell who it is who does the gathering and throwing into the fire. Although some claim that realized eschatology is so prevalent in the Fourth Gospel that no references to final eschatology appear at all, the fate of these branches seems to point to the opposite. The imagery is almost certainly that of eschatological judgment, and recalls some of the OT vine imagery which involves divine rejection and judgment of disobedient Israel (Ezek 15:4-6, 19:12).

¹² tn Grk “they gather them up and throw them into the fire, and they are burned.”

¹³ sn The same word translated distress here has been translated sadness in the previous verse (a wordplay that is not exactly reproducible in English).

¹⁴ tn Grk “her hour.”

¹⁵ tn Grk “that a man” (but in a generic sense, referring to a human being).

¹⁶ sn Jesus now compares the situation of the disciples to a woman in childbirth. Just as the woman in the delivery of her child experiences real pain and anguish (has distress), so the disciples will also undergo real anguish at the crucifixion of Jesus. But once the child has been born, the mother’s anguish is turned into joy, and she forgets the past suffering. The same will be true of the disciples, who after Jesus’ resurrection and reappearance to them will forget the anguish they suffered at his death on account of their joy.

¹⁶ tn Grk “So she ran and came.”