9:5a

In Greek, 9:5a begins with a conjunction that is often translated as “and.” The Berean Standard Bible and some other English versions do not translate this conjunction. It introduces the possibility that the disciples would not be able to do as Jesus had told them in the previous verse. In some languages it may be natural to translate it as “But.”

If anyone does not welcome you: The phrase does not welcome you refers to a situation where the people of a town might not receive the apostles. This probably implies that the townspeople would refuse to accept the apostles’ message. It may also imply that they would refuse to allow the apostles to stay in the town as guests.

In some languages it may be more natural to make explicit that this clause is referring to the people of certain towns. For example:

wherever people don’t welcome you (Good News Translation)
-or-

⌊But⌋ if ⌊you go to a town where⌋ people reject you

9:5b

shake the dust off your feet when you leave that town: In some languages it may be more natural to translate 9:5b as two commands. For example:

leave that town and shake the dust off your feet (Good News Translation)

shake the dust off your feet: Here Jesus told the disciples to remove any of the town’s dust that stuck to their feet and sandals. The disciples probably did this by shaking their feet or by brushing off the dust with their hands. Consider how you would describe this kind of action in your language.

To a Jewish person, shaking the dust of a place off his feet had a special meaning. It meant that he did not have any relationship with the people in that place. It implied that the people there were not God’s people.

In this context, the disciples were also showing that they were not responsible for what happened to those people. God would punish the people because they did not accept the disciples and their message.

It is important to translate this action literally here in 9:5b. Then you can explain the meaning in the next phrase (9:5c). Some ways to translate this are:

shake off the dust of that town from the bottom of your feet when you leave
-or-
when you leave, shake/brush/tap your feet to remove the dust

the dust: The phrase the dust refers to the dust of the town where people rejected them. In some languages it may be more natural to make this explicit. For example:

shake its dust from your feet

your feet: If your language has specific words for the “lower leg and foot” or for the “sole of the foot,” consider which of these expressions is more natural for this context.

9:5c

as a testimony against them: The phrase as a testimony against them gives the meaning of the symbolic action of shaking dust off one’s feet. When the apostles shook off the dust of a town from their feet, they were warning the people. They were saying that God would judge them if they did not repent. Other ways to translate this phrase are:

as a warning to them ⌊that God will judge/punish them⌋
-or-
as a sign to show them ⌊that they are responsible/guilty⌋

© 2009, 2010, 2013 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.