Galatians 3:4
New International Version
Have you experienced so much in vain—if it really was in vain?

New Living Translation
Have you experienced so much for nothing? Surely it was not in vain, was it?

English Standard Version
Did you suffer so many things in vain—if indeed it was in vain?

Berean Standard Bible
Have you suffered so much for nothing, if it really was for nothing?

Berean Literal Bible
Did you suffer so many things in vain, if indeed also in vain?

King James Bible
Have ye suffered so many things in vain? if it be yet in vain.

New King James Version
Have you suffered so many things in vain—if indeed it was in vain?

New American Standard Bible
Did you suffer so many things in vain—if indeed it was in vain?

NASB 1995
Did you suffer so many things in vain— if indeed it was in vain?

NASB 1977
Did you suffer so many things in vain—if indeed it was in vain?

Legacy Standard Bible
Did you suffer so many things for nothing—if indeed it was for nothing?

Amplified Bible
Have you suffered so many things and experienced so much all for nothing—if indeed it was all for nothing?

Christian Standard Bible
Did you experience so much for nothing—if in fact it was for nothing?

Holman Christian Standard Bible
Did you suffer so much for nothing—if in fact it was for nothing?

American Standard Version
Did ye suffer so many things in vain? if it be indeed in vain.

Aramaic Bible in Plain English
Have you endured all these things for nothing? But oh, that it were for nothing!

Contemporary English Version
Have you gone through all of this for nothing? Is it all really for nothing?

Douay-Rheims Bible
Have you suffered so great things in vain? If it be yet in vain.

English Revised Version
Did ye suffer so many things in vain? if it be indeed in vain.

GOD'S WORD® Translation
Did you suffer so much for nothing? [I doubt] that it was for nothing!

Good News Translation
Did all your experience mean nothing at all? Surely it meant something!

International Standard Version
Did you suffer so much for nothing? (If it really was for nothing!)

Literal Standard Version
So many things you suffered in vain! If, indeed, even in vain.

Majority Standard Bible
Have you suffered so much for nothing, if it really was for nothing?

New American Bible
Did you experience so many things in vain?—if indeed it was in vain.

NET Bible
Have you suffered so many things for nothing?--if indeed it was for nothing.

New Revised Standard Version
Did you experience so much for nothing?—if it really was for nothing.

New Heart English Bible
Did you suffer so many things in vain, if it is indeed in vain?

Webster's Bible Translation
Have ye suffered so many things in vain? if it is yet in vain.

Weymouth New Testament
Have you endured such sufferings to no purpose--if indeed it has been to no purpose?

World English Bible
Did you suffer so many things in vain, if it is indeed in vain?

Young's Literal Translation
so many things did ye suffer in vain! if, indeed, even in vain.

Additional Translations ...
Audio Bible



Context
Faith and Belief
3Are you so foolish? After starting in the Spirit, are you now finishing in the flesh? 4Have you suffered so much for nothing, if it really was for nothing? 5Does God lavish His Spirit on you and work miracles among you because you practice the law, or because you hear and believe?…

Cross References
Ezekiel 18:24
But if a righteous man turns from his righteousness and practices iniquity, committing the same abominations as the wicked, will he live? None of the righteous acts he did will be remembered. Because of the unfaithfulness and sin he has committed, he will die.

1 Corinthians 15:2
By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain.

Galatians 3:3
Are you so foolish? After starting in the Spirit, are you now finishing in the flesh?


Treasury of Scripture

Have you suffered so many things in vain? if it be yet in vain.

ye.

Ezekiel 18:24
But when the righteous turneth away from his righteousness, and committeth iniquity, and doeth according to all the abominations that the wicked man doeth, shall he live? All his righteousness that he hath done shall not be mentioned: in his trespass that he hath trespassed, and in his sin that he hath sinned, in them shall he die.

Hebrews 6:4-6
For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, …

Hebrews 10:32-39
But call to remembrance the former days, in which, after ye were illuminated, ye endured a great fight of afflictions; …

so many.

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Endured Experience Fact Indeed Purpose Really Suffer Suffered Sufferings Undergo Vain
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Endured Experience Fact Indeed Purpose Really Suffer Suffered Sufferings Undergo Vain
Galatians 3
1. He asks what moved them to leave the faith, and hold onto the law.
6. Those who believe are justified,
9. and blessed with Abraham.
10. And this he shows by many reasons.
15. The purpose of the Law
26. You are sons of God














(4) Suffered so many things.--The Galatians, like other churches, were subjected to much persecution when first they embraced Christianity. The persecutors were probably their own Jewish countrymen, whose jealousy and rage they had braved in the name of the gospel as preached by St. Paul. Now they were abandoning that very gospel for the principles of those by whom they had been persecuted. Conduct could not be more fickle and "foolish."

If it be yet in vain.--If it be indeed in vain. The Apostle cannot quite bring himself to believe that it is, and he puts in this delicate qualification parenthetically, to show the Galatians that, much as appearances may be against them, he will not give up the hope that a lingering spark of their first joyous conviction, in the strength of which they had undergone persecution, yet remained.

Verse 4. - Have ye suffered so many things in vain? if it be yet in vain (τοσαῦτα ἐπάθετε εἰκῆ εἴγε καὶ εἰκῆ); did ye suffer all those troubles for nought? if indeed really for nought. The ambiguity of τοσαῦτα, which means either "so many" or "so great," is preserved by the rendering all those. The Revisers put so many in the text, and "or so great" in the margin. In respect to ἐπάθετε, the leading of the context in which the verse is embedded might incline us to take the verb in the sense in which it frequently occurs in Greek writers, that of being subjects of such and such treatment, good as well as bad; as, for example, in Josephus, 'Ant.,' 3:15, 1, Ὅσα παθόντες ἐξ αὐτοῦ καὶ πηλικῶν εὐεργσιῶν μεταλαβόντες, "What treatment having received from him [sc. God], and what huge benefits having partaken of" - the character of the treatment being sufficiently indicated by the context as being that of kindness. But it is a fatal objection to this view of the passage that, in the forty passages or more in which the verb πάσχω is used in the New Testament, it never is used of good treatment, but always of bad; and so also always in the Septuagint. We are, therefore, shut up to the sense of "suffering ills," and must endeavour to find, if we can, some circumstances marking the troubles referred to which might serve to explain the seemingly abrupt mention of them here. And the probable explanation is this: those sufferings were brought upon the Galatian converts, not only through the influence of Jews, but also in consequence of the bitter enmity with which the Jews regarded St. Paul, as bringing converts over from among the Gentiles to the service of the one true God apart from any regard to the ceremonial Law of Moses. That Jews in general did thus regard St. Paul is shown by the suspicion which even Christian Jews felt towards him (Acts 21:21). For this no doubt, it was that the Jews in Asia Minor persecuted him from city to city as they did, their animosity against him extending itself also to these who had attached themselves to him as his disciples. That it did extend itself to his disciples as such appears, as from the nature of the case, so also from Acts 14:22, "That through many tribulations we must enter into the kingdom of God;" as also it is evinced by the strongly indignant tone in which he speaks of the persecuting Jews in his two Epistles to the Thessalonians, written near the very time to which he here alludes (1 Thessalonians 2:14-16; 2 Thessalonians 1:8, 9) - this indignation being best accounted for by the supposition that it was roused by his sympathy with the similarly originated sufferings of the Macedonian brethren to whom he was writing. That the troubles here referred to emanated from the hostility of Jewish legalists may be further gathered from Galatians 5:11; Galatians 6:12 (on which see Exposition). Those Jewish legalists hated both St. Paul and his converts, because they alike walked in "the Spirit," that is, in the element of Christian spirituality emancipated from the bondage of the Law, and not in "the flesh" of Mosaic ceremonialism. Hence it is that the mention in ver. 3 of the Galatian brethren having "begun with the Spirit," leads him on to the thought of the sufferings which just on that very account had been brought upon them. "For nought." This adverb εἰκῆ sometimes means, prospectively, "to no good," as in Galatians 4:11, "bestowed labour upon you in vain," and probably in 1 Corinthians 15:2; sometimes, retrospectively, "for no just cause," as in Colossians 2:18, "vainly puffed up." The English phrase, "for nought," has just a similar ambiguity. The apostle may, therefore, mean either this - Did ye suffer all these troubles to reap after all no benefit from your suffering them, forfeiting as you do (Galatians 5:4) the reward which you might else have expected from the great Retributor (2 Thessalonians 1:6, 7) through your forsaking that ground of faith on which ye then stood, if indeed ye have forsaken it? or this - Did ye provoke all that persecution without just cause? - if, indeed, there was no just cause as ye seem now to think. According to the former view, the Galatians were now nullifying the benefit which might have accrued to them from their former endurance of persecution; according to the latter, they were now stultifying their former conduct in provoking these persecutions. The first seems somewhat the easiest. Αἴ γε, as in Colossians 1:23. The concluding clause has been here regarded as a reaching forth of the apostle's soul towards the hope that better thoughts might yet prevail with the Galatian waverers, so that they would not lose the reward of having suffered for Christ - a hope which he thus glances at, if so be he might thus lure them to its realization. But another view of the words has commended itself to not a few eminent critics, namely, that the apostle glances at the darker prospect; as if he had said, "If it be, indeed, merely for nought, and not for far worse than that! By falling away from the gospel, ye not only lose the crown of confessorship: ye forfeit also your hope of your heavenly inheritance" (cf. Galatians 5:4). The conjunction καὶ is, confessedly, sometimes almost equivalent to "merely," "only," as e.g. in Homer, 'Odyssey,' 1:58, Ἱέμενος καὶ καπνὸν ἀποθρώσκοντα νοῆσαι ῆς γαίης, "Longing if only but to see the smoke leaping upward from his native land." But in the present case εἴ γε does not so readily suggest the last proposed suppletion of thought as it does the other.

Parallel Commentaries ...


Greek
Have you suffered
ἐπάθετε (epathete)
Verb - Aorist Indicative Active - 2nd Person Plural
Strong's 3958: I am acted upon in a certain way, either good or bad; I experience ill treatment, suffer.

so much
τοσαῦτα (tosauta)
Demonstrative Pronoun - Accusative Neuter Plural
Strong's 5118: So great, so large, so long, so many. From tosos and houtos; so vast as this, i.e. Such.

for nothing,
εἰκῇ (eikē)
Adverb
Strong's 1500: Without a cause, purpose; purposelessly, in vain, for nothing. Probably from eiko; idly, i.e. Without reason.

if
εἴ (ei)
Conjunction
Strong's 1487: If. A primary particle of conditionality; if, whether, that, etc.

it really was
γε (ge)
Particle
Strong's 1065: A primary particle of emphasis or qualification.

for nothing?
εἰκῇ (eikē)
Adverb
Strong's 1500: Without a cause, purpose; purposelessly, in vain, for nothing. Probably from eiko; idly, i.e. Without reason.


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NT Letters: Galatians 3:4 Did you suffer so many things (Gal. Ga)
Galatians 3:3
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