How to read this page

An Intertextuality Pair — one connection between two passages, shown as linked verse cards: the Later text and the Earlier text it quotes, alludes to or echoes. The Significance essay explains why the link matters and where it points in Christ.

Reference Type— how explicit the link is: Quotation, Allusion, or Echo
Connection Method(s)— how it carries meaning: e.g. Typology, Promise-Fulfillment, Analogy, Longitudinal Theme
Found via— where the connection was identified, e.g. the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge or an Anchor-Text Network

Graph View — tap the constellation icon in the top bar to see this page's connections as a web of light: gold points are passages, and the coloured threads are the connection types. Click any type in the graph's own legend to filter it in or out, and use the expand control for the full-screen night sky.

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Intertextuality Pair

3 John 1:11 → Psalm 34:14

Echo

Later text

3 John 11BSB

Open the passage to read it in full.

Earlier text

Psalm 34:14BSB

Turn away from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it.

+ 3 more earlier texts

Earlier text

Psalm 37:27BSB

Turn away from evil and do good, so that you will abide forever.

Earlier text

Isaiah 1:16-17BSB

Wash and cleanse yourselves. Remove your evil deeds from My sight. Stop doing evil! Learn to do right; seek justice and correct the oppressor. Defend the fatherless and plead the case of the widow.”

Earlier text

Amos 5:14-15BSB

Seek good, not evil, so that you may live. And the LORD, the God of Hosts, will be with you, as you have claimed. Hate evil and love good; establish justice in the gate. Perhaps the LORD, the God of Hosts, will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph."

Significance

The exhortation to "turn from evil and do good" is pervasive in Old Testament wisdom and prophetic literature. Psalm 34:14 and 37:27 present this as the path of life and blessing, while Isaiah 1:16-17 and Amos 5:14-15 intensify it with prophetic urgency—doing good is not optional moralism but evidence of covenant loyalty and true knowledge of God. John applies this principle to discern authentic Christian identity: those who habitually do good are "from God" (literally "born of God," echoing 1 John 3:9); those who do evil have never truly "seen God" (using the language of direct divine encounter). The hermeneutical move is analogical—as Old Testament wisdom distinguished the righteous from the wicked by their deeds, John distinguishes true believers from false by observable fruit. This reflects realized eschatology: the new covenant promise that God's people would walk in His statutes (Ezekiel 36:27) is now evident in those born of God through the gospel.

Found via: Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Reference Type: Echo
Connection Method(s): Analogy