Passage

1 John 3.12

Book: 1 John · NASB95

Immediate context (±2 verses)

ASV

10. In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil: whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother. 11. For this is the message which ye heard from the beginning, that we should love one another:

12. not as Cain was of the evil one, and slew his brother. And wherefore slew he him? Because his works were evil, and his brother's righteous.

Marvel not, brethren, if the world hateth you. 14. We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brethren. He that loveth not abideth in death. (1 John 3:10-14, ASV)

WEB

10. In this the children of God are revealed, and the children of the devil. Whoever doesn’t do righteousness is not of God, neither is he who doesn’t love his brother. 11. For this is the message which you heard from the beginning, that we should love one another;

12. unlike Cain, who was of the evil one, and killed his brother. Why did he kill him? Because his deeds were evil, and his brother’s righteous.

Don’t be surprised, my brothers, if the world hates you. 14. We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers. He who doesn’t love his brother remains in death. (1 John 3:10-14, WEB)

KJV

10. In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil: whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother. 11. For this is the message that ye heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. ^{message: or, commandment}

12. Not as Cain, who was of that wicked one, and slew his brother. And wherefore slew he him? Because his own works were evil, and his brother's righteous.

Marvel not, my brethren, if the world hate you. 14. We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren. He that loveth not his brother abideth in death. (1 John 3:10-14, KJV)

YLT

10. In this manifest are the children of God, and the children of the devil; every one who is not doing righteousness, is not of God, and he who is not loving his brother, 11. because this is the message that ye did hear from the beginning, that we may love one another,

12. not as Cain, of the evil one he was, and he did slay his brother, and wherefore did he slay him? because his works were evil, and those of his brother righteous.

Do not wonder, my brethren, if the world doth hate you; 14. we, we have known that we have passed out of the death to the life, because we love the brethren; he who is not loving the brother doth remain in the death. (1 John 3:10-14, YLT)

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Setting

Speaker: the author of 1 John, who does not name himself but writes as an eyewitness of "the Word of life" (1:1); Irenaeus, Against Heresies 3.16.5 and 3.16.8 (c. AD 180), quotes the letter as the work of John, the disciple of the Lord
Audience: believers he calls "brethren" and "beloved", in churches unsettled by teachers who "went out from us" (2:19)
Location: traditionally Ephesus, in the Roman province of Asia
Time period: late first century, commonly dated c. AD 85-100
In the letter: opens the section on love for one another (3:11-24) with a negative example

Theological reading

"Not as Cain, who was of that wicked one, and slew his brother. And wherefore slew he him? Because his own works were evil, and his brother's righteous" (1 John 3:12, KJV). Cain is the only figure from the Old Testament named in 1 John, and the letter contains no formal Old Testament quotation. When John reaches for one example of what love is not, he goes back to the first murder.

He reads Genesis 4 morally. The narrative says the LORD had respect to Abel's offering and not to Cain's, and warned Cain, "If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted?" (Genesis 4:7, KJV). John supplies the reason the narrative implies: Cain's works were evil and Abel's righteous. The murder came not from a misunderstanding but from the hatred that evil feels toward goodness that exposes it. Other New Testament writers use Cain the same way: Abel offered "a more excellent sacrifice" (Hebrews 11:4), and false teachers "have gone in the way of Cain" (Jude 11).

"Of that wicked one" connects Cain to the two families of 3:10. Cain is the first child of the devil in practice, as the devil "sinneth from the beginning" (3:8) and, in Jesus' words, "was a murderer from the beginning" (John 8:44). The verse then grounds the next one: "Marvel not, my brethren, if the world hate you" (3:13). The righteous have been hated since Abel.

Key words

Theologically-loaded Greek or Hebrew words in this verse may have entries in the lexicon. Curated to roughly 100 contested terms across the corpus, not every word.

G1342 - dikaios, dikaios, Strong's G1342

Quoted in

Concepts:

The Devil

Notes

Your annotations.

Why these four translations

ris3n chose ASV, WEB, KJV, and YLT for two reasons together. They are the most literal English translations available (formal-equivalence: word-for-word renderings that preserve the Hebrew and Greek grammar rather than smoothing it into modern dynamic-equivalence idiom). And they are in the public domain in the United States, which means fair-use quotation at any length requires no publisher license. Modern licensed translations (NASB95, ESV, NIV) restrict volume of quotation under their copyright terms, so they are not used at stub-level coverage here. NASB95 appears only on hand-curated rich passage hubs under Lockman Foundation's fair-use allowance.

The four:

ASV (American Standard Version, 1901). The basis of the modern critical-text English tradition.
WEB (World English Bible, contemporary). Public-domain revision in the ASV line, in current English.
KJV (King James Version, 1611). Reformation-era, Textus Receptus base.
YLT (Young's Literal Translation, Robert Young, 1862). Hyper-literal preservation of Hebrew and Greek grammar; useful for word-study work even where English reads stiff.

See Bibles for the full per-translation history, translators, textual basis, strengths, and weaknesses.