Mark 12:29 (DRB)

Passage

And Jesus answered him: The first commandment of all is, Hear, O Israel: the Lord thy God is one God.

Nearby Context

Mark 12:27 He is not the God of the dead, but of the living. You therefore do greatly err.

Mark 12:28 And there came one of the scribes that had heard them reasoning together, and seeing that he had answered them well, asked him which was the first commandment of all.

Mark 12:29 And Jesus answered him: The first commandment of all is, Hear, O Israel: the Lord thy God is one God.

Mark 12:30 And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart and with thy whole soul and with thy whole mind and with thy whole strength. This is the first commandment.

Mark 12:31 And the second is like to it: Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is no other commandment greater than these.

Study Lenses

The verse centers on "jesus", "answered", "first", "commandment", "hear", "israel", and "lord". It is saying that the verse draws attention to "jesus" and "answered", so its meaning should be read from those terms before moving to application.

The nearby context moves from verse 28's "And there came one of the scribes..." into verse 30's "And thou shalt love the Lord thy...", so "jesus" and "answered" belong inside that flow. In Mark context, the local focus is Christ, faith, and discipleship.

A plain takeaway is to answer the verse's own emphasis on "jesus" and "answered" with trust shaped by these words, not by a vague optimism outside the passage.