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Read the Bible

The NET Bible®

Galatians 4:11

I fear for you that my work for you may have been in vain.

Bible Study Resources

Concordances:

- Nave's Topical Bible - Backsliders;   Instability;   Love;   Works;   Zeal, Religious;   Thompson Chain Reference - Backsliding;   Care;   Church;   Deterioration-Development;   Formalism;   Ministers;   Paul's;   Religion;   Religion, True-False;   The Topic Concordance - Law;  

Dictionaries:

- Bridgeway Bible Dictionary - Sabbath;   World;   Baker Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology - Lord's Day, the;   Charles Buck Theological Dictionary - Holy Day;   Fausset Bible Dictionary - Galatians, the Epistle to the;   Holman Bible Dictionary - Galatians, Letter to the;   Worship;   Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible - Adoption;   Lord's Day;   Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament - Galatians Epistle to the;   Labour (2);   New Moon;   Passover;   Paul;   Persis ;  

Encyclopedias:

- International Standard Bible Encyclopedia - Galatians, Epistle to the;   The Jewish Encyclopedia - Sabbath and Sunday;   Saul of Tarsus;  

Parallel Translations

Christian Standard Bible®
I am fearful for you, that perhaps my labor for you has been wasted.
King James Version (1611)
I am afraide of you, lest I haue bestowed vpon you labour in vaine.
King James Version
I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed upon you labour in vain.
English Standard Version
I am afraid I may have labored over you in vain.
New American Standard Bible
I fear for you, that perhaps I have labored over you in vain.
New Century Version
I am afraid for you, that my work for you has been wasted.
Amplified Bible
I fear for you, that perhaps I have labored [to the point of exhaustion] over you in vain.
New American Standard Bible (1995)
I fear for you, that perhaps I have labored over you in vain.
Legacy Standard Bible
I fear for you, that perhaps I have labored over you for nothing.
Berean Standard Bible
I fear for you, that my efforts for you may have been in vain.
Contemporary English Version
I am afraid I have wasted my time working with you.
Complete Jewish Bible
I fear for you that my work among you has been wasted!
Darby Translation
I am afraid of you, lest indeed I have laboured in vain as to you.
Geneva Bible (1587)
I am in feare of you, lest I haue bestowed on you labour in vaine.
George Lamsa Translation
I am afraid that perhaps I have labored among you in vain.
Good News Translation
I am worried about you! Can it be that all my work for you has been for nothing?
Lexham English Bible
I am afraid for you, lest perhaps I have labored for you in vain!
Literal Translation
I fear for you, lest somehow I have labored among you in vain.
American Standard Version
I am afraid of you, lest by any means I have bestowed labor upon you in vain.
Bible in Basic English
I am in fear of you, that I may have been working for you to no purpose.
Hebrew Names Version
I am afraid for you, that I might have wasted my labor for you.
International Standard Version
I am afraid for you, lest somehow my work for you has been wasted!Galatians 2:2; 1 Thessalonians 3:5;">[xr]
Etheridge Translation
I am afraid, lest vain in I have laboured among you.
Murdock Translation
I am afraid, lest I have labored among you in vain.
Bishop's Bible (1568)
I am in feare of you, lest I haue bestowed on you labour in vayne.
English Revised Version
I am afraid of you, lest by any means I have bestowed labour upon you in vain.
World English Bible
I am afraid for you, that I might have wasted my labor for you.
Wesley's New Testament (1755)
Brethren, I beseech you, be ye as I am; for I also am as ye were: ye have not injured me at all.
Weymouth's New Testament
I am alarmed about you, and am afraid that I have perhaps bestowed labour upon you to no purpose.
Wycliffe Bible (1395)
But Y drede you, lest without cause Y haue trauelid among you.
Update Bible Version
I am afraid of you, lest by any means I have bestowed labor on you in vain.
Webster's Bible Translation
I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed upon you labor in vain.
New King James Version
I am afraid for you, lest I have labored for you in vain.
New Living Translation
I fear for you. Perhaps all my hard work with you was for nothing.
New Life Bible
I am afraid my work with you was wasted.
New Revised Standard
I am afraid that my work for you may have been wasted.
J.B. Rotherham Emphasized Bible
I am afraid of you - lest by any means, in vain, I should have toiled for you!
Douay-Rheims Bible
I am afraid of you, lest perhaps I have laboured in vain among you.
Revised Standard Version
I am afraid I have labored over you in vain.
Tyndale New Testament (1525)
I am in feare of you lest I have bestowed on you laboure in vayne.
Young's Literal Translation
I am afraid of you, lest in vain I did labour toward you.
Miles Coverdale Bible (1535)
I am in feare of you, lest I haue bestowed laboure on you in vayne.
Mace New Testament (1729)
you make me apprehensive, that the labour I have bestowed upon you will be all in vain.
Simplified Cowboy Version
I feel sorry for you. Maybe all my hard work was for nothing.

Contextual Overview

8 Formerly when you did not know God, you were enslaved to beings that by nature are not gods at all. 9 But now that you have come to know God (or rather to be known by God), how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless basic forces? Do you want to be enslaved to them all over again? 10 You are observing religious days and months and seasons and years. 11 I fear for you that my work for you may have been in vain.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

am: Galatians 4:20, 2 Corinthians 11:2, 2 Corinthians 11:3, 2 Corinthians 12:20, 2 Corinthians 12:21

lest: Galatians 2:2, Galatians 5:2-4, Isaiah 49:4, Acts 16:6, 1 Corinthians 15:58, Philippians 2:16, 1 Thessalonians 3:5, 2 John 1:8

Reciprocal: Leviticus 26:20 - your strength Psalms 127:1 - they labour 2 Corinthians 6:1 - beseech 2 Corinthians 7:5 - fears Galatians 5:10 - confidence Colossians 1:23 - ye continue 1 Thessalonians 2:1 - in vain 1 Thessalonians 5:12 - labour

Cross-References

Genesis 3:14
The Lord God said to the serpent, "Because you have done this, cursed are you above all the wild beasts and all the living creatures of the field! On your belly you will crawl and dust you will eat all the days of your life.
Genesis 4:14
Look! You are driving me off the land today, and I must hide from your presence. I will be a homeless wanderer on the earth; whoever finds me will kill me."
Genesis 4:15
But the Lord said to him, "All right then, if anyone kills Cain, Cain will be avenged seven times as much." Then the Lord put a special mark on Cain so that no one who found him would strike him down.
Genesis 4:16
So Cain went out from the presence of the Lord and lived in the land of Nod, east of Eden.
Genesis 4:19
Lamech took two wives for himself; the name of the first was Adah, and the name of the second was Zillah.
Genesis 4:20
Adah gave birth to Jabal; he was the first of those who live in tents and keep livestock.
Genesis 4:21
The name of his brother was Jubal; he was the first of all who play the harp and the flute.
Genesis 4:26
And a son was also born to Seth, whom he named Enosh. At that time people began to worship the Lord .
Job 16:18
"O earth, do not cover my blood, nor let there be a secret place for my cry.
Isaiah 26:21
For look, the Lord is coming out of the place where he lives, to punish the sin of those who live on the earth. The earth will display the blood shed on it; it will no longer cover up its slain.

Gill's Notes on the Bible

I am afraid of you,.... Which shows the danger he apprehended they were in, by taking such large steps from Christianity to Judaism, and expresses the godly jealousy of the apostle over them; intimates he had some hope of them, and in the whole declares his great love and affection for them; for love is a thing full of care and fear:

lest I have bestowed upon you labour in vain; in preaching the Gospel among them with so much diligence and constancy, though so many afflictions and pressures lay upon him. Faithful ministers of the word are laborious ones; and such an one was the apostle; and who indeed laboured more abundantly than the rest in all places wherever he came; and such will be concerned, as he was, lest their labours should be in vain, not to themselves, but to the souls of others, whose everlasting good and welfare they are seeking. But how is it that the apostle should fear that his labour in preaching the Gospel would be in vain, and become of no effect through their observance of days, months, times, and years? because that hereby the pure spiritual and evangelic worship of God was corrupted, they bringing into it that which God had removed, and so became guilty of will worship; their Christian liberty was infringed, and they brought into bondage, a deliverance from which the Gospel proclaims; the doctrine of free grace in pardon, justification, and salvation, was made void, they observing these things in order to procure them thereby; and it was virtually and tacitly saying, that Christ was not come in the flesh, which is the main article of the Gospel; for since these things had respect to him, and were to continue no longer than till his coming, to keep on the observation of them, was declaring that he was not come; which is in effect to set aside the whole Gospel, and the ministration of it; so that the apostle might justly fear, that by such a proceeding all his labour, and the pains he had took to preach the Gospel, and salvation by Christ unto them, would be in vain.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

I am afraid of you ... - I have fears respecting you. His fears were that they had no genuine Christian principle. They had been so easily perverted and turned back to the servitude of ceremonies and rites, that he was apprehensive that there could be no real Christian principle in the case. What pastor has not often had such fears of his people, when he sees them turn to the weak and beggarly elements of the world, or when, after having “run well,” he sees them become the slaves of fashion, or of some habit inconsistent with the simplicity of the gospel?

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse 11. I am afraid of you — I begin now to be seriously alarmed for you, and think you are so thoroughly perverted from the Gospel of Christ, that all my pains and labour in your conversion have been thrown away.


 
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