Mark 1:16-20, AEV

Below is my translation of Mark 1:16-20 which follows the beginning of Jesus’ ministry in Galilee (1:14-15). Here we see Jesus call his first disciples, including the inner three of Simon Peter, James, and John.

MARK 1:16-20, AEV

¹⁶And walking along^a the Sea of Galilee he saw Simon and Andrew, the brother of Simon, casting nets in the Sea, for they were fishers. ¹⁷And Jesus said to them, “Come follow me,^b and I will make you to become fishers of people.” ¹⁸Then immediately, leaving the nets, they followed him. ¹⁹Then after going on a little farther, he saw James the son of Zebedee and John his brother, and they were in the boat mending nets. ²⁰And right away he called to them. Then they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired workers and went after him.

TEXTUAL NOTES

^a The Greek text has paragōn para, a rather redundant expression since paragōn is a compound word from the preposition para (“along side”) and the verb agó (“to lead/to go”). The Matthean author avoids this redundancy by changing paragōn para to  peripatōn…para (Matthew 4:18). Some mss of Mark also change the reading to fall in line with the text of Matthew.

^b The Markan text reads, Deute opisō mou – literally, “Come after me.” When opisō is followed by the genitive then the sense is “to follow” and so my translation of “Come follow me.” This happens again in 1:20 where we read that James and John leave their father and “went after him [apēlthon opisō autou].”