Discovery BoxLuke 3:7 
Context3:7 So John 1 said to the crowds 2 that came out to be baptized by him, “You offspring of vipers! 3 Who warned you to flee 4 from the coming wrath?
Luke 7:29-30
Context7:29 (Now 5 all the people who heard this, even the tax collectors, 6 acknowledged 7 God’s justice, because they had been baptized 8 with John’s baptism. 7:30 However, the Pharisees 9 and the experts in religious law 10 rejected God’s purpose 11 for themselves, because they had not been baptized 12 by John. 13 ) 14
1 tn Grk “he”; the referent (John) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
2 sn The crowds. It is interesting to trace references to “the crowd” in Luke. It is sometimes noted favorably, other times less so. The singular appears 25 times in Luke while the plural occurs 16 times. Matt 3:7 singles out the Sadducees and Pharisees here.
3 tn Or “snakes.”
4 sn The rebuke “Who warned you to flee…?” compares the crowd to snakes who flee their desert holes when the heat of a fire drives them out.
5 tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “now” to indicate the parenthetical nature of the comment by the author.
6 sn See the note on tax collectors in 3:12.
7 tn Or “vindicated God”; Grk “justified God.” This could be expanded to “vindicated and responded to God.” The point is that God’s goodness and grace as evidenced in the invitation to John was justified and responded to by the group one might least expect, tax collector and sinners. They had more spiritual sensitivity than others. The contrastive response is clear from v. 30.
8 tn The participle βαπτισθέντες (baptisqente") has been translated as a causal adverbial participle.
9 sn See the note on Pharisees in 5:17.
10 tn That is, the experts in the interpretation of the Mosaic law (see also Luke 5:17, although the Greek term is not identical there, and Luke 10:25, where it is the same).
11 tn Or “plan.”
12 tn The participle βαπτισθέντες (baptisqente") has been translated as a causal adverbial participle; it could also be translated as means (“for themselves, by not having been baptized”). This is similar to the translation found in the NRSV.
13 tn Grk “by him”; the referent (John the Baptist) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
14 sn Luke 7:29-30 forms something of an aside by the author. To indicate this, they have been placed in parentheses.
