eternal
αἰώνιος Greek · Strong’s G166
Settled English
Every level eternal
Key term: eternal life. Readable keeps the phrase and may explain it.
Where it is used
The text drafted so far uses it 69 times, in 19 books.
Translated otherwise 1
Sentences where the settled English is not used, with the decision that explains why.
Perhaps this is why he was parted from you for a little while: so that you might have him back for good, no longer as a slave but as more than a slave, a dear brother. He is especially dear to me, and how much more to you, both in everyday life and in the Lord.
Not the settled English at: Literal, Balanced, Readable
forever: for good, and for all eternity αἰώνιον is the word for “eternal”, as in eternal life. Here it is set against πρὸς ὥραν (“for an hour”): Philemon lost Onesimus for a short time and gets him back for good, and as a brother in Christ the bond will outlast this life.
Not the settled English at: Literal, Balanced, Readable
forever (L, R); for good (B) The key term “eternal” is not used: the contrast with “for an hour” calls for “forever” (m2).
Every sentence
Each sentence in Balanced English, with the word marked. The verse link opens it in the reader.
Matthew 6 uses
If your hand or your foot leads you into sin, cut it off and get rid of it. You are better off entering life maimed or lame than keeping both hands or both feet and being thrown into the eternal fire.
Then a man came up to Jesus and asked, “Teacher, what good thing must I do to gain eternal life?”
Anyone who has left behind houses, or brothers or sisters, or father or mother, or wife or children, or fields, for the sake of my name will be repaid a hundred times over and will receive eternal life as an inheritance.
Then he will say to those at his left, ‘Go away from me, you who are under a curse, into the eternal fire that has been made ready for the devil and his angels.
These will depart to eternal punishment, and the righteous will go to eternal life.”
Mark 4 uses
But anyone who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit has no forgiveness, ever; that person is guilty of an eternal sin.”
As Jesus was setting out on his journey, a man ran up to him, fell on his knees in front of him, and asked, “Good Teacher, what should I do to inherit eternal life?”
Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, anyone who has left a home, brothers or sisters, mother or father, children or land because of me and because of the gospel will receive a hundred times as much now, in this present time: homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and land, together with persecutions. And in the age that is coming they will receive eternal life.
After this Jesus himself sent out through them, from east to west, the sacred and imperishable proclamation of eternal salvation.
Luke 4 uses
Then an expert in the law stood up to put Jesus to the test. “Teacher,” he said, “what do I have to do to inherit eternal life?”
And I tell you, use the wealth of this unjust world to make friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, they will welcome you into the eternal homes.
One of the leaders asked him, “Good Teacher, what do I have to do to inherit eternal life?”
He answered them, “Truly I tell you, anyone who has left a house, a wife, brothers, parents or children for the sake of the kingdom of God is sure to be given back far more in this life, and in the age that is coming, eternal life.”
John 17 uses
Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, and in the same way the Son of Man must be lifted up, so that everyone who believes will have eternal life in him.
For God’s love for the world was such that he gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but have eternal life.
Anyone who believes in the Son has eternal life, but anyone who refuses to obey the Son will not see life. Instead, the wrath of God remains on them.”
But no one who drinks the water I will give will ever be thirsty again. The water I give will become in them a spring whose water leaps up into eternal life.”
Listen, I tell you: raise your eyes and look at the fields. They have turned white, ready for harvest. Already the reaper is being paid and is gathering a crop for eternal life, so that the sower may rejoice along with the reaper.
Truly, truly, I tell you, anyone who hears my word and believes the one who sent me has eternal life. Such a person does not come under condemnation, but has already moved out of death into life.
You pore over the Scriptures, since you think that eternal life is to be found in them; and they are the ones that testify about me.
Do not work for food that passes away, but for the food that remains for eternal life, the food the Son of Man will give you. For he is the one God the Father has marked with his seal.”
For what my Father wills is this: everyone who sees the Son and believes in him will have eternal life, and I myself will raise them up on the last day.”
Truly, truly, I tell you, anyone who believes has eternal life.
Anyone who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and on the last day I will raise them up.
You have words that bring eternal life. We have believed, and we know, that you are the Holy One of God.”
The sheep that belong to me listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand.
Whoever loves their life is losing it, and whoever hates their life in this world will keep it safe for eternal life.
And I know that his commandment is eternal life.
After Jesus had said these things, he raised his eyes toward heaven and prayed: “Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son, so that the Son may glorify you. For you have given him authority over all people, in order that he may give eternal life to everyone you have given him.
And eternal life is this: that they know you, the only true God, and the one you sent, Jesus Christ.
Acts 2 uses
Paul and Barnabas spoke out boldly: “The word of God had to be spoken to you first. Since you push it away and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, see, we are turning to the Gentiles.
When the Gentiles heard this, they rejoiced and glorified the word of the Lord, and all who had been appointed to eternal life believed.
Romans 4 uses
Those who persist in doing good, seeking glory, honor and immortality, he will reward with eternal life.
The law came in alongside, so that the trespass would multiply. But where sin multiplied, grace overflowed far beyond it, so that, as sin held its reign through death, grace in turn might reign through righteousness and lead to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Now, though, freed from sin and made slaves of God, you have fruit that leads to holiness, and its outcome is eternal life.
The wages sin pays are death, but God’s free gift is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
2 Corinthians 3 uses
2 Corinthians 4:17 2 Corinthians 4:18
Our troubles are light and last only a moment, and they are bringing about for us an eternal glory, weighty beyond all measure. All the while, we look not at what can be seen but at what cannot be seen. What can be seen lasts only a while; what cannot be seen is eternal.
For we know that if the tent we live in here on earth is taken down, we have a building from God, a house that no human hands have made, eternal, in heaven.
Galatians 1 use
Those who sow into their own flesh will gather a harvest of decay from the flesh; those who sow into the Spirit will gather from the Spirit a harvest of eternal life.
2 Thessalonians 2 uses
We are bound to thank God for you at all times, brothers and sisters, and rightly so, because your faith is growing beyond measure and the love every one of you has for the others keeps increasing. So we ourselves speak proudly of you among the churches of God, because of your endurance and faith in all the persecutions and troubles you are bearing. All this is evidence that God judges rightly, and the result will be that you are counted worthy of God’s kingdom, for which you are suffering. For it is right for God to repay with suffering those who make you suffer, and to give rest to you who suffer, as to us also, when the Lord Jesus appears from heaven with his mighty angels in a blaze of fire, bringing punishment on those who do not know God and on those who refuse to obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will pay the penalty of eternal destruction, cut off from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his power, on that day when he comes to be glorified among his holy people and marveled at by all who believed. And you are among those believers, for when we bore witness to you, you believed it.
Our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father loved us and gave us eternal comfort and a good hope by grace. May they comfort your hearts and steady them in every good deed and word.
1 Timothy 3 uses
Here is a saying you can rely on, which deserves to be fully accepted: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, and I am the worst of them. But I was shown mercy for this very reason: so that in me, the worst of all, Christ Jesus could show how completely patient he is, as an example for those who would come to believe in him and receive eternal life.
Compete well in the good contest of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called when you made your good confession in front of many witnesses.
In the presence of God, who gives life to everything, and of Christ Jesus, who made the good confession when he testified before Pontius Pilate, I charge you to keep this command without fault or blame until our Lord Jesus Christ appears. God will bring this about at the right time: the blessed and only Ruler, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone is immortal, who lives in light no one can approach, whom no one has seen or can see. To him be honor and eternal power. Amen.
2 Timothy 2 uses
So do not be ashamed to testify about our Lord, or ashamed of me, his prisoner. Instead, share with me in suffering for the gospel, relying on the power of God. He saved us and called us to a holy life, not because of anything we had done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before eternal ages began, and now it has been revealed through the appearing of our Savior, Jesus Christ. He has destroyed death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. For this gospel I was appointed a herald, an apostle and a teacher.
So I endure everything for the sake of God’s chosen people, so that they too may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus, and with it eternal glory.
Titus 3 uses
From Paul, a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ. I was sent to bring God’s chosen people to faith and to the knowledge of the truth that leads to godliness, a faith and knowledge resting on the hope of eternal life. God, who never lies, promised this life before eternal ages began, and at the right time he made his word known through the preaching entrusted to me by the command of God our Savior. To Titus, my true son in the faith we share: grace and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Savior.
But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of new birth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs with the hope of eternal life.
Philemon 1 use
Perhaps this is why he was parted from you for a little while: so that you might have him back for good, no longer as a slave but as more than a slave, a dear brother. He is especially dear to me, and how much more to you, both in everyday life and in the Lord.
Not the settled English at: Literal, Balanced, Readable
forever: for good, and for all eternity αἰώνιον is the word for “eternal”, as in eternal life. Here it is set against πρὸς ὥραν (“for an hour”): Philemon lost Onesimus for a short time and gets him back for good, and as a brother in Christ the bond will outlast this life.
Not the settled English at: Literal, Balanced, Readable
forever (L, R); for good (B) The key term “eternal” is not used: the contrast with “for an hour” calls for “forever” (m2).
Hebrews 6 uses
As he also says in another place, “You are a priest forever, of the order of Melchizedek.” In the days of his life in the flesh, he offered up prayers and pleas, crying aloud and weeping, to the one who was able to save him out of death, and he was heard for his godly fear. Even though he was a Son, he learned obedience by the things he suffered. And having been made perfect, he became the cause of eternal salvation for everyone who obeys him, for God declared him a high priest of the order of Melchizedek.
So let us leave behind the first message about Christ and be carried forward to maturity. Let us not be laying a foundation all over again: turning away from dead works and putting faith in God, teaching about ritual washings and the laying on of hands, the raising of the dead and eternal judgment.
But Christ came as high priest of the good things that have now come. Through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, one not made by hands and not belonging to this creation, and by means not of the blood of goats and calves but of his own blood, he entered the sanctuary once for all and obtained an eternal redemption.
For if the blood of goats and bulls, and a heifer’s ashes sprinkled on people who have become defiled, make them holy so that they are clean in body, how much more will the blood of Christ wash our conscience clean of dead works, so that we may worship the living God! Through the eternal Spirit he offered himself to God, a sacrifice without flaw.
This is why he mediates a new covenant: a death has taken place to set people free from the offenses committed under the first covenant, and so those who are called may receive what was promised, the eternal inheritance.
May the God of peace, who led our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, up from the dead through the blood of an eternal covenant, make you ready in every good thing for doing his will. May he bring about in us whatever pleases him, through Jesus Christ. To him be the glory for all the ages. Amen.
1 Peter 1 use
And after you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore you, make you firm and strong, and set you on a sure foundation.
2 Peter 1 use
This is how you will be given a full and generous welcome into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
1 John 6 uses
What was there from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our own eyes, what we looked at closely and touched with our hands—this is what we are speaking about: the word of life. That life was revealed. We have seen it, and we testify to it, and we announce to you the eternal life that was with the Father and was revealed to us. We announce to you as well what we have seen and heard, so that you too may have fellowship with us. The fellowship we share is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ.
And the promise he himself made to us is this: eternal life.
Whoever hates a brother or sister is a murderer, and you know that eternal life does not remain in any murderer.
And here is what the testimony says: God gave us eternal life, and that life is found in his Son.
I have written these things to you so that you may know that you have eternal life—you who believe in the name of the Son of God.
This one is the true God, and eternal life.
Jude 2 uses
So too Sodom and Gomorrah and the towns around them, which, like those angels, gave themselves to sexual immorality and went after flesh of another kind, now lie before us as an example, suffering the penalty of eternal fire.
But you, dear friends, keep building yourselves up on your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit. Keep yourselves within God’s love, while you look forward to the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that brings eternal life.
Revelation 1 use
I saw another angel too, flying high in the sky, who carried an eternal gospel to proclaim to the people who live on the earth, to every nation, tribe, language, and people. In a loud voice he cried, “Stand in awe of God and give him glory, for the hour has come when he will judge. Worship the maker of heaven and earth, of the sea and the springs of water.”