1 John 1:2

and the life was revealed, and we have seen and testify and announce ¹  to you the eternal life that was with the Father and was revealed to us). ² 

The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us.

and the life was manifested, and we have seen and testify and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was manifested to us—

This one who is life from God was shown to us, and we have seen him. And now we testify and announce to you that he is the one who is eternal life. He was with the Father, and then he was shown to us.

The Word of Life appeared right before our eyes; we saw it happen! And now we're telling you in most sober prose that what we witnessed was, incredibly, this: The infinite Life of God himself took shape before us.

(And the life was made clear to us, and we have seen it and are witnessing to it and giving you word of that eternal life which was with the Father and was seen by us);

this life was revealed, and we have seen it and testify to it, and declare to you the eternal life that was with the Father and was revealed to us—

the life was manifested, and we have seen, and bear witness, and declare to you that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested to us––

and the life was revealed, and we have seen and testify and announce ¹  to you the eternal life that was with the Father and was revealed to us). ² 

¹ tn Or “proclaim.”

² tn In the Greek text the prologue to 1 John (vv. 1-4) makes up a single sentence. This is awkward in Greek, and a literal translation produces almost impossible English. For this reason the present translation places a period at the end of v. 2 and another at the end of v. 3. The material in parentheses in v. 1 begins the first of three parenthetical interruptions in the grammatical sequence of the prologue (the second is the entirety of v. 2 and the third is the latter part of v. 3). This is because of the awkwardness of connecting the prepositional phrase with what precedes, an awkwardness not immediately obvious in most English translations: “what we beheld and our hands handled concerning the word of life…” As J. Bonsirven (Épîtres de Saint Jean [CNT], 67) noted, while one may hear about the word of life, it is more difficult to see about the word of life, and impossible to feel with one’s hands about the word of life. Rather than being the object of any of the verbs in v. 1, the prepositional phrase at the end of v. 1 (“concerning the word of life…”) is more likely a parenthetical clarification intended to specify the subject of the eyewitness testimony which the verbs in v. 1 describe. A parallel for such parenthetical explanation may be found in John 1:12 (τοῖς πιστεύουσιν εἰς τὸ ὄνομα αὐτοῦ, toi" pisteuousin ei" to onoma autou).