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Text and Translation
Greek Text
9. πᾶς ὁ παραβαίνω καὶ μὴ μένων ἐν τῇ διδαχῇ τοῦ Χριστοῦ, Θεὸν οὐκ ἔχει· ὁ μένων ἐν τῇ διδαχῇ τοῦ Χριστοῦ, οὗτος καὶ τὸν πατέρα καὶ τὸν υἱὸν ἔχει.
10. εἴ τις ἔρχεται πρὸς ὑμᾶς, καὶ ταύτην τὴν διδαχὴν οὐ φέρει, μὴ λαμβάνετε αὐτὸν εἰς οἰκίαν, καὶ χαίρειν αὐτῷ μὴ λέγετε·
11. ὁ γὰρ λέγων αὐτῷ χαίρειν, κοινωνεῖ τοῖς ἔργοις αὐτοῦ τοῖς πονηροῖς.
English Translation
9. Whoever transgresses and remains not in the teaching of Christ does not have God; he who remains in the teaching of Christ has both the Father and the Son.
10. If anyone comes to you and he does not bring this teaching, do not receive him in your house and do not even say ‘Greetings!’ to him;
11. for the one who says “Greetings!” to him shares in his evil works.
Graphical Grammar
Weighty Words
- διδαχῇ / διδαχὴν – fem. sg. dat / fem. sg. acc. ▶ διδαχή: teaching, instruction. Compare this with the use of λόγον in Heb. 6:1, διδαχῆς in Heb. 6:2, all of which are translated “doctrine” in the KJV. The NASB renders λόγον as teaching, and διδαχῆς as “instruction,” but διδαχῇ and διδαχὴν as “teaching.”
- χαίρειν – pres. act. inf. ▶ denotatively means “to rejoice, be glad,” but see the discussion below on fossilized infinitives.
- λέγετε -2 pl pres. act. impv. ▶ λέγω: (you) say!.
- ὁ λέγων – pres act. ptc. masc. sg. nom ▶ λέγω: with the article this is a substantive participle, “the one who says.”
Syntax Sense
Verse 9
ὁ παραβαίνων — literally “the one who goes beyond / oversteps / transgresses.”. The verb παραβαίνω is used in the LXX for violating Torah (e.g., Num 14:41; Josh 7:11). For Jewish believers, John appears to be making clear the tie between Christ and the Law. The construction is a frequent use of the substantival participle by John.
- πᾶς ὁ + participle = “everyone who …”
- ὁ + participle = “the one who …”
- Parallel to 1 John 2:23, 3:4, 3:6, 3:10, 5:1, etc.
καὶ μὴ μένων — As in other places in John’s writing, μένω here carries the force of remain, not merely abide. The context explains why. Transgression is not framed as a momentary step outside, but as a refusal to remain within the teaching of Christ. John is not contrasting an initial failure with later persistence; rather, the participial construction defines the transgression itself as not remaining. What is condemned is not a single misstep, but a settled posture outside the teaching of Christ.
Note that παραβαίνων + μὴ μένων forms a compound characterization. These coordinated participles share the same article, same subject, and same scope. John does not present two independent failures (transgressing and failing to remain), nor does he describe a transgression followed by persistence in it. To do that, John could have repeated πᾶς ὁ to present two coordinate conditions (the one who transgresses and the one who remains) or he could have added a καί before ὁ παραβαίνων and another article before μένων, but he does not. Rather, the construction defines transgression itself as not remaining in the teaching of Christ—a failure whose ongoing nature is assumed by the participial form and reinforced by the discourse context.
Θεὸν οὐκ ἔχει — present tense → “does not have God” (right now, today).
οὗτος → this is anaphoric for ὁ μένων (ἐν τῇ διδαχῇ τοῦ Χριστοῦ). The diagram depicts this even without the descriptive arrow.
καὶ τὸν πατέρα καὶ τὸν υἱὸν ἔχει — “Where did the ‘both’ come from in your translation,” you may wonder? “Further,” you may think, “why is there an and before the nouns?” Observant questions. καὶ + noun + καὶ + noun is a very Greek thing to write. When Greek coordinates two objects with καὶ … καί, English is often justified in making the coordination explicit with “both … and,” especially when the objects are distinct, personal, and equally emphasized. This kind of construction is a polysyndeton–another one of those opaque words grammarians like to use. But this one comes up so often, it’s worth tucking away in the recesses of your mind. Polysyndeton is simply the repetition of conjunctions (repeated καὶ, here) in a series of coordinate words or phrases (τὸν πατέρα and τὸν υἱὸν, here). If you want to read more about it Smyth covers these in §§ 2877, 2974, and 3043.1
Verse 10
εἴ τις ἔρχεται πρὸς ὑμᾶς – Present-tense general condition → habitual or ongoing possibility. If anyone keeps coming / comes (at any time) to you…”
ταύτην τὴν διδαχὴν οὐ φέρει – φέρω here = “bring (with him), carry, bear as doctrine.” (Some translations say “does not bring this doctrine/teaching along with him,” which adds a word but brings out the traveling-teacher context.)
εἴ τις + condition + condition + … – where have we seen something like this? How about: “Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, Nor standeth in the way of sinners, Nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful….” The conditional structure is grammatically Greek, but it reflects a wisdom-style, covenantal way of reasoning—similar to the binary moral logic found in texts like Psalm 1. Not to put too fine a point on it, but the Greek here is not syntactically Hebrew, but morally binary in the same way.
μὴ λαμβάνετε αὐτὸν εἰς οἰκίαν – λαμβάνετε = present imperative → ongoing prohibition: “stop receiving / do not (ever) receive.” εἰς οἰκίαν = literally “into a house / into the house.” Since the entire letter is addressed to the “elect lady” (i.e., a house-church), οἰκίαν here means the place where the church meets. So “do not receive him into your house” is about the church; it’s not about ordinary hospitality, it’s about not giving an itinerant false teacher a platform in the congregation.
χαίρειν αὐτῷ μὴ λέγετε – Literally: “do not say ‘Rejoice!’ to him” In Hellenistic Greek, χαίρειν is the standard greeting formula (“Greetings!” / “Hello!” / “Peace!”). This is serious: John is proscribing even the normal polite greeting one would give any visitor. Note the boundary that is drawn here regarding hospitality and read this along with III John.
Verse 11
ὁ … λέγων – Substantival present participle → “the one who says” (generic, anyone who does it). English normally needs the article or “the one who” to avoid sounding incomplete. The article before the participle λέγων is what forces the substantival rendering in English. If the article were absent, λέγων αὐτῷ χαίρειν could theoretically be taken as a circumstantial participle modifying some other subject (“while saying ‘Greetings!’ to him, he participates…”), which is the way we often see bare participles in Greek.
But the presence of the article turns the whole participial phrase into the subject of the sentence: ὁ λέγων αὐτῷ χαίρειν κοινωνεῖ τοῖς ἔργοις αὐτοῦ τοῖς πονηροῖς = “The (person who is) saying ‘Greetings!’ to him participates in his evil deeds.” This is the standard, textbook way Greek makes a participle into a noun:
- ὁ πιστεύων → “the one who believes” (John 3:18)
- ὁ μὴ φιλῶν → “the one who does not love” (1 John 3:10)
- ὁ λέγων → “the one who says” (1 John 2:4)
The article is the decisive signal. Without it we might translate more loosely (“by saying ‘Greetings!’ to him…”); with it, English is obligated to supply “the one who” (or “whoever,” “anyone who,” “he who”) to make the substantival force clear.
The article ὁ is the decisive grammatical signal here.
αὐτῷ χαίρειν – The accusative infinitive is still the direct object of λέγων. I went with “by the saying ‘Greetings!’” to be as literal as possible to preserve the exact word being forbidden.
What gives with χαίρειν – (literally: “to rejoice” / “to be glad”)? It functioned exactly like English “Greetings!” or Latin “Salvē!” — a frozen, fossilized infinitive used as an interjection.
Where it came from
- Classical Greek letters In formal letters, the standard opening was always: [Sender] [Recipient] χαίρειν “(So-and-so) to (So-and-so): Greetings!” You see it hundreds of times in Plato, Demosthenes, the papyri, and official correspondence. The infinitive is the old “infinitive of command” or “infinitive absolute” — a very archaic Greek idiom that survived only in greetings and a few other set phrases.
- Everyday spoken use By the Hellenistic period it had become the normal spoken greeting as well.
- Acts 15:23 — the Jerusalem letter opens ἀδελφοὶ χαίρειν (“the brothers: Greetings!”)
- Acts 23:26 — Claudius Lysias to Felix: χαίρειν
- James 1:1 — Ἰάκωβος … τοῖς δώδεκα φυλαῖς … χαίρειν (the only NT letter that uses the full secular epistolary form)
- Why the infinitive stuck Greek (like Latin with “Salvēre” or “Avē”) kept the old infinitive as a fossil because it was short, unmistakable, and carried a wish: “May you rejoice / fare well / be in good health.”
It’s the same phenomenon that gave us:- Latin: “Valē!” (lit. “Be strong!”)
- English: “Farewell” (lit. “Fare thee well” — subjunctive frozen into a single word)
So when the Elder writes χαίρειν αὐτῷ μὴ λέγετε, he is literally saying: “Do not utter the single, ritual word that you would normally say to a fellow-Christian when he walks through the door.”
κοινωνεῖ – Present indicative → ongoing, real participation. Not just “shares in” but “becomes a participant / partner / fellow-worker.” Same verb used in Phil 4:14; Rev 18:4; 1 Tim 5:22 (“do not share in the sins of others”). English “participates in” or “shares in” both work; “partners with” is even stronger.
τοῖς ἔργοις αὐτοῦ τοῖς πονηροῖς – The repeated article is emphatic: “those evil deeds of his.” πονηρός here is the full Johannine weight: “evil in the satanic, antichrist sense” (cf. 1 John 3:12).
Demystifying the Discourse
Understand who the subjects are here. They aren’t arbitrary non-believers knocking; these are former members (the “many deceivers” of v. 7) who have left the community and are now traveling from house-church to house-church trying to win converts to their non-incarnational teaching. Note that whether the ‘elect lady’ is understood as a metaphor for a house church or as a literal individual, the instruction in vv. 9–11 clearly concerns communal teaching and recognition rather than private hospitality.
“Do not receive him into the house” = do not let him teach, do not give him lodging, do not let him address the assembly. “Do not even say ‘χαίρειν’ to him” = do not give him the kiss of peace, do not acknowledge him as a brother, treat him as an outsider and a threat.
In the social world of early house churches, saying χαίρειν functioned as public recognition and endorsement. It was the equivalent of “Shalom!” or “Grace and peace!”; it signaled recognition as a brother and granted him safe passage into the assembly. John’s instruction therefore draws a clear boundary around communal identity and teaching authority. This is a serious, non-trivial, admonition.
Verse 11 is so sobering: seemingly ordinary politeness is unacceptable. There is no neutral ground here. Without endorsing the conclusions of any particular commentary, the following observation from JFB captures well the social force of John’s language here:
By wishing a false brother or teacher “God (or ‘good’) speed,” you imply that he is capable as such of good speed and joy (the literal meaning of the Greek), and that you wish him it while opposing Christ; so you identify yourself with “his evil deeds.” The Greek of “partaker” is “having communion with.” We cannot have communion with saints and with Antichrist at the same time. Here we see John’s naturally fiery zeal directed to a right end. Polycarp, the disciple of John, told contemporaries of Irenaeus, who narrates the story on their authority, that on one occasion when John was about to bathe, and heard that Cerinthus, the heretic, was within, he retired with abhorrence, exclaiming, Surely the house will fall in ruins since the enemy of the truth is there.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset, and David Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, vol. 2 (Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 1997), 540.
Your turn!
Choose one or two prompts—there’s no need to do them all.
- Identify the substantival participles in vv. 9–11 and explain how the article shapes their meaning.
- In v. 10, decide whether “house” refers primarily to private hospitality or to a house-church setting. What clues in the Greek or context support your view?
- Take a look at the admonitions about hospitality here and those to Gaius in III John. Why the difference?
- Reflect briefly: what does John’s restriction on χαίρειν suggest about how language functioned socially in early Christian communities?
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See complete translation of II John here.
- I use the 1956 edition (which is a light revision of the 1920 edition). If your edition does not line up with my section references, send me a note and I’ll help you find them in yours. ↩︎