This verse contrasts the natural crops and the “spiritual crops.” There is an interval of four months between sowing and harvesting natural crops, but it may be that this passage suggests that with the “spiritual crops” the results are immediate. What is emphasized is the joy which both the one who plants and the one who reaps have in common.

Good News Translation makes explicit the object of the verb reaps (that is, the harvest), which is unexpressed in Greek. Gathers the crops for eternal life is literally “gathers fruit for eternal life,” but the use of the plural crops is more natural in English than the singular “fruit.” In this context the crops are people who believe, while the phrase for eternal life means “that these people who believe may have eternal life.” However, though the sense of the imagery that Jesus uses may be explained in this way, it is usually unwise to remove the metaphor (“demetaphorize”) when translating. Here, as in other passages of John, the imagery is so closely tied to the event to which it refers that to “demetaphorize” in translation may require so much reworking as to go beyond the legitimate limits of translation.

The phrase the man who reaps the harvest may be translated as more or less equivalent to “the man who harvests” or “the man who cuts the grain” or even “the man who brings the grain in from the field.” The choice of a term or phrase will depend upon the most natural way of speaking about harvesting in the language concerned.

The passive expression is being paid may be made active by indicating the agent, who would be God, that is, “God pays the man who harvests.” However, the introduction of God as the agent of the paying may be misunderstood. It may be better to use a so-called pseudo-passive, for example, “receive pay,” since the pay the harvester receives is essentially eternal life. Here reaping the harvest and gathering the crops refer to the same process.

Quoted with permission from Newman, Barclay M. and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on the Gospel of John. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1980. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .