2:16 (Sentence Breaks)
This is a long sentence containing a list of items which may each have to be translated by a whole clause. You may need to make this into two or more sentences in your translation.
2:16a
For all that is in the world: (Logical Relationship) This verse gives the reason for John’s statement in the second part of 2:15 that someone who loves the world cannot at the same time be loving God. It is not giving a reason for the appeal not to love the world.
all that is in the world: (Figure of Speech) This is hyperbole, or exaggeration. John means “all the evil ways/deeds of people in this world, such as….” Then in 2:16b–d he gives three specific examples of these evil ways.
2:16b
the desires of the flesh: (Meaning) John is here referring to the way our human nature makes us want to do things just for our own pleasure.
the flesh: (Multiple Senses) The word flesh here refers to the human body, so used in the phrase “desires of the flesh” the entire phrase refers to sinful physical desires.
2:16c
the desires of the eyes: (Meaning) This refers to the way people want to get things they see or hear about, not caring whether God wants them to have those things or not.
2:16d
the pride of life: (Meaning) This implies the type of pride which is wrong, because the thing you are boasting about is not really yours, or because it is not actually a good thing.
life: (Multiple Senses) The Greek word translated here is used in the sense of possessions, wealth, the means of living.
2:16e
is not from: (Metaphor) If it is not natural in your language to speak of attitudes such as desire and pride “coming from” someone or something then you may need to translate the meaning directly. The basic meaning here is that these attitudes are not ones God wants us to have, but rather they are caused by our following the evil ways of the world.
© 2000 by SIL International®
Made available under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License (CC BY-SA) creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
All Scripture quotations in this publication, unless otherwise indicated, are from The Holy Bible, Berean Standard Bible. BSB is produced in cooperation with Bible Hub, Discovery Bible, OpenBible.com, and the Berean Bible Translation Committee.