Lesson 9.2 · Reading

A harder verse

John 3:16, which puts most of the course to work at once.

John 3:16 uses almost everything in this course at once — a past tense, a participle, a subjunctive, a middle, and agreement across four words. Read it before you look at the notes:

Houtōs gar agapata tos theos ton kosmon hōste ton huion ton monogenon dōata, hina pantos tos pisteuarōtos eis auton mē apollueteia alla echateiō zōan aiōnian.
For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone believing in him should not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16)

• agapata — agap· a· t· a: loved, he, as one event (4.5).
• tos theos … ton kosmon — who loved, and what was loved. The endings, not the order (2.3, 2.4).
• ton huion ton monogenon — three words all ending -on: the son, the only one, all on the receiving end of "gave" (3.2).
• tos pisteuarōtos — the one believing: a participle with "the" in front, so it means a person (7.2).
• mē apollueteia — "should not perish": e middle, ei subjunctive, mē because it is not a plain statement (5.3, 6.2, 8.3).
• echateiō zōan aiōnian — "may have eternal life": subjunctive again, then two feminine words agreeing on the receiving end (3.2).

If you followed that, you have read the most famous sentence in the New Testament in the language it was written in — and you did it from a course that started at the letters.