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33 They answered him, “We are descendants of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone.[a] How can you say, ‘You will become free’?”(A) 34 Jesus answered them, “Amen, amen, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave of sin.(B) 35 A slave does not remain in a household forever, but a son[b] always remains.(C)

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Footnotes

  1. 8:33 Have never been enslaved to anyone: since, historically, the Jews were enslaved almost continuously, this verse is probably Johannine irony, about slavery to sin.
  2. 8:35 A slave…a son: an allusion to Ishmael and Isaac (Gn 16; 21), or to the release of a slave after six years (Ex 21:2; Dt 15:12).