What Does Revelation 3:10 Mean?
Because you have guarded the word of my bearing up under, I also will keep you from the hour of testing, which is about to come upon all the inhabited earth, to test those who settle upon the ground.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
Because thou hast kept the word of my patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth.THE KEY
The same word describes both what you have kept and the speaker’s promise to keep you.
THE MEANING
The word of patient endurance you hold fast is met with the speaker’s promise to keep you from the coming hour of testing. That test reaches the whole inhabited world, yet the verse addresses you through a personal promise of keeping.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that a trial reaching the whole world leaves no one under a particular promise is undone: the verse sets your keeping beside its universal scope.
THE ROOT
πειρασμοῦ
peirasmou
GROWS FROM
πειρα-
peira-
Attempt, put to trial, test.
“testing” in this verse is peirasmou. The noun translated “temptation” and the verb translated “try” belong to the same Greek word family. That echo draws the phrase toward a coming test or proving, while the word still carries the shade of temptation.
ALSO GROWS
peirasmos: A trial, test, or temptation.
πειρασμός
This is the noun in “hour of temptation”; its range includes the testing named by the verb that follows.
peirazō: To test, put to proof, or tempt.
πειράζω
This is the verb behind “to try them,” making the test explicit in the same sentence.
ἐτήρησας
etērēsas
GROWS FROM
τηρ-
tēr-
Keep watch over, guard, preserve.
“kept” in this verse is etērēsas. The same verb describes your keeping of the word and the speaker’s keeping of you. The repeated word joins guarded teaching with a guarded person, so the promise answers the verse’s opening action.
ALSO GROWS
tērēsis: Keeping or guarding.
τήρησις
The noun makes the act of keeping visible as an ongoing watch or preservation.
diatēreō: To preserve or keep intact.
διατηρέω
This related form carries the same keeping into preservation, deepening the promise beyond simple remembrance.
ὑπομονῆς
hypomonēs
GROWS FROM
μένω (menō), in ὑπό + μένω
Remain; stay. The compound ὑπομονή joins “under” with “remain.”
“bearing up under” in this verse is hypomonēs. Ὑπομονή pictures remaining under pressure, not merely waiting without feeling. The verse’s “patience” therefore carries endurance within it: staying present beneath what tests you.
ALSO GROWS
hypomenō: Remain under, endure.
ὑπομένω
This verb shares the compound’s image of staying beneath pressure.
monē: Dwelling place, abode.
μονή
This related form turns “remaining” into abiding, showing the root’s link between endurance and staying.
THE PATTERN
A test may reach the whole world while keeping is spoken as a particular promise to the one who endures.
The LORD watches over you from all harm; he watches over your living soul.I do not ask that you lift them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil.who are guarded by the strength of God through trust, unto deliverance prepared to be unveiled in the last season.THE THREAD
I do not ask that you lift them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil.Both verses use τηρέω (tēreō), “keep” or “guard,” in relation to danger. John says keeping does not mean being taken out of the world; that distinction opens Revelation’s promise while leaving the precise manner of keeping unstated.
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