Revelation 3:17

You say, ‘I am rich; I have grown wealthy and need nothing.’ But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind, and naked.

Berean Standard Bible

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Study note

Setting — Jesus addresses the Laodicean church, the one he has just judged as lukewarm (v.16) and is about to offer a remedy (v.18).

The words — πεπλοὺτηκα (peploutēka) is perfect tense: "I have grown rich," a settled, completed state of self-sufficiency. The verse's force is the collision between that confident declaration and the five descriptors that follow.

The thread — The self-made wealth boast echoes Ephraim in Hosea 12:8, and the gap between appearance and reality is the pretender of Proverbs 13:7.

Why it lands — It forces the reader to name what they actually lack before they can accept the remedy offered in the next verse.

Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.

The Greek words

King James Version

Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked:

Cross-references

Proverbs 13:7 One pretends to be rich, but has nothing; another pretends to be poor, yet has great wealth.
Romans 7:24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?
Hosea 12:8 And Ephraim boasts: “How rich I have become! I have found wealth for myself. In all my labors, they can find in me no iniquity that is sinful.”
Revelation 2:9 I know your affliction and your poverty—though you are rich! And I am aware of the slander of those who falsely claim to be Jews, but are in fact a synagogue of Satan.
Revelation 16:15 “Behold, I am coming like a thief. Blessed is the one who remains awake and clothed, so that he will not go naked and let his shame be exposed.”
Luke 1:53 He has filled the hungry with good things, but has sent the rich away empty.
Deuteronomy 8:12 Otherwise, when you eat and are satisfied, when you build fine houses in which to dwell,
Matthew 9:12 On hearing this, Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.
John 9:40 Some of the Pharisees who were with Him heard this, and they asked Him, “Are we blind too?”
Genesis 3:7 And the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; so they sewed together fig leaves and made coverings for themselves.