Markus 6:25-34

6:25 Immediately she hurried back to the king and made her request: ¹  “I want the head of John the Baptist on a platter immediately.” 6:26 Although it grieved the king deeply, ²  he did not want to reject her request because of his oath and his guests. 6:27 So ³  the king sent an executioner at once to bring John’s ⁴  head, and he went and beheaded John in prison. 6:28 He brought his head on a platter and gave it to the girl, and the girl gave it to her mother. 6:29 When John’s ⁵  disciples heard this, they came and took his body and placed it in a tomb.

The Feeding of the Five Thousand

6:30 Then ⁶  the apostles gathered around Jesus and told him everything they had done and taught. 6:31 He said to them, “Come with me privately to an isolated place and rest a while” (for many were coming and going, and there was no time to eat). 6:32 So they went away by themselves in a boat to some remote place. 6:33 But many saw them leaving and recognized them, and they hurried on foot ⁷  from all the towns ⁸  and arrived there ahead of them. ⁹  6:34 As Jesus ¹⁰  came ashore ¹¹  he saw the large crowd and he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. So ¹²  he taught them many things.

¹ tn Grk “she asked, saying.” The participle λέγουσα (legousa) is redundant and has not been translated.

² tn Grk “and being deeply grieved, the king did not want.”

³ tn Grk “And.” Here καί (kai) has been translated as “so” to indicate the implied result of previous action(s) in the narrative.

⁴ tn Grk “his”; the referent (John the Baptist) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

⁵ tn Grk “his”; the referent (John the Baptist) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

⁶ tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “then” to indicate the implied sequence of events within the narrative.

⁷ tn Grk “ran together on foot.” The idea of συντρέχω (suntrecw) is “to come together quickly to form a crowd” (L&N 15.133).

⁸ tn Or “cities.”

⁹ tc The translation here follows the reading προῆλθον (prohlqon, “they preceded”), found in א B [phone] pc lat co. Some mss (D 28 33 700 pc) read συνῆλθον (sunhlqon, “arrived there with them”), while the majority of mss, most of them late (Ì^84vid [A ˹³] Ï sy^h), conflate the two readings (προῆλθον αὐτοὺς καὶ συνῆλθον πρὸς αὐτόν, “they preceded them and came together to him”). The reading adopted here thus has better external credentials than the variants. As well, it is the harder reading internally, being changed “by copyists who thought it unlikely that the crowd on the land could have outstripped the boat” (TCGNT 78).

¹⁰ tn Grk “he”; the referent (Jesus) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

¹¹ tn Grk “came out [of the boat],” with the reference to the boat understood.

¹² tn Grk “And.” Here καί (kai) has been translated as “So” to indicate this action is the result of Jesus’ compassion on the crowd in the narrative.