complete verse (Revelation 3:17)

Following are a number of back-translations of Revelation 3:17:

  • Uma: “You [emphatic] say that you are rich, your lives are complete, you no longer have any need. But in fact you do not even know how pitiful you are. You are saddening [i.e., make the observer’s heart well up with sadness], you are poor, you are blind, and you are naked in the life of your soul.” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
  • Yakan: “You say that you are rich and that your living-situation/livelihood is good. You say that you have no need. But the truth is, you are like blind, you don’t know as to how you really are. You are to be pitied because you are poor, that means your trust is lacking/little. You are also like people who have no clothes.” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
  • Western Bukidnon Manobo: “You say, ‘We (incl.) are rich, and our situation is good. We do not lack anything.’ But in spite of that, you do not know that you are very pitiful because you are poor in faith; your mind is blinded, and you are naked because you have no righteous acts.” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
  • Kankanaey: “You think/say you are rich having all that you need, but you don’t know that the truth of it is, you are to-be-pitied. Because it is true that you are poor, you have no clothes, and you are blind.” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
  • Tagbanwa: “You say, you are rich, and everything is plentiful. There’s no lack at all. However you don’t know that the truth is, you are pathetic, you are beggars with no means. You are blind and naked people.” (Source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)
  • Tenango Otomi: “You think that you are rich, not lacking a thing. All is going well, you say. How come you don’t realize that misery is what you have encountered? For very little do you have. You are poor. You are blind. You do not have clothing to wear.” (Source: Tenango Otomi Back Translation)

Translation commentary on Revelation 3:17

There is no praise for the Christians of Laodicea. Christ confronts their false claims with the truth about their spiritual condition. They boast: I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing. They are the opposite of the believers at Smyrna, who thought they were poor but who, Christ said, were really rich. Rich may also be rendered as “have many possessions” (see also 2.9 for other ways to express this word). Prospered in this context is simply a synonym for rich. For I need nothing one may say “I don’t need any more possessions.”

This verse has typical repetition and redundancy for emphasis. Unless the redundancy carries the wrong message, as sometimes it does, the translator should avoid the temptation to reduce it. Often redundancy is common and effective in religious services. The verbal phrases are quite general in scope, and appropriate equivalents should not be hard to find.

Not knowing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked: again there is an accumulation, this time of adjectives, to indicate the spiritual poverty of the Laodicean Christians. The adjective translated wretched (Good News Translation “miserable”) appears elsewhere in the New Testament only at Romans 7.24. It also means “unhappy,” “unfortunate,” or “pathetic.” The word translated pitiable means “deserving pity” (it appears also in 1 Cor 15.19). In certain languages this word will be translated as “have much shame” or “have no face.” The noun poor appears once more in Revelation (13.16); see also2.9 on the translation of “poverty.” Blind appears only here in Revelation, and naked appears also in 16.15; 17.16. The Greek word translated naked sometimes means only “poorly clothed,” but here the idea of being completely unclothed is required.

The translator will notice that Good News Translation reverses the last two adjectives: “naked, and blind.” It is impossible now to explain why this was done, except that “naked and blind” seems to finish the sentence better than “blind and naked.” In any case, a translator should follow the order of the Greek text as in Revised Standard Version, unless it is more natural in the receptor language to reverse the order of these adjectives.

Instead of making this a dependent clause, as Revised Standard Version does, it is better to put a full stop at nothing and begin a new sentence, as Good News Translation and others do. In some languages this second sentence can be in the form of a rhetorical question: “Don’t you know that…?” “Can’t you see that…?”

Quoted with permission from Bratcher, Robert G. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on The Revelation to John. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1993. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .