Markus 1:7

1:7 He proclaimed, ¹  “One more powerful than I am is coming after me; I am not worthy ²  to bend down and untie the strap ³  of his sandals.

Markus 6:8

6:8 He instructed them to take nothing for the journey except a staff ⁴  – no bread, no bag, ⁵  no money in their belts –

[1:7]  ¹ tn Grk “proclaimed, saying.” The participle λέγων (legwn) is redundant in contemporary English and has not been translated.

[1:7]  ² tn Grk “of whom I am not worthy.”

[1:7]  sn The humility of John is evident in the statement I am not worthy. This was considered one of the least worthy tasks of a slave, and John did not consider himself worthy to do even that for the one to come, despite the fact he himself was a prophet.

[1:7]  ³ tn The term refers to the leather strap or thong used to bind a sandal. This is often viewed as a collective singular and translated as a plural, “the straps of his sandals,” but it may be more emphatic to retain the singular here.

[6:8]  ⁴ sn Neither Matt 10:9-10 nor Luke 9:3 allow for a staff. It might be that Matthew and Luke mean not taking an extra staff, or that the expression is merely rhetorical for “traveling light,” which has been rendered in two slightly different ways.

[6:8]  ⁵ tn Or “no traveler’s bag”; or possibly “no beggar’s bag” (L&N 6.145; BDAG 811 s.v. πήρα).