Passage
Why don’t you understand my speech? Because you can’t hear my word.
John 8:43 (WEB)
Nearby Context
John 8:41 You do the works of your father.” They said to him, “We were not born of sexual immorality. We have one Father, God.”
John 8:42 Therefore Jesus said to them, “If God were your father, you would love me, for I came out and have come from God. For I haven’t come of myself, but he sent me.
John 8:43 Why don’t you understand my speech? Because you can’t hear my word.
John 8:44 You are of your father, the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and doesn’t stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks on his own; for he is a liar, and the father of lies.
John 8:45 But because I tell the truth, you don’t believe me.
Study Lenses
The verse centers on "understand", "speech", "hear", and "word". It is saying that the verse draws attention to "understand" and "speech", so its meaning should be read from those terms before moving to application.
The nearby context moves from verse 42's "Therefore Jesus said to them If God..." into verse 44's "You are of your father the devil...", so "understand" and "speech" belong inside that flow. In John context, the local focus is the identity of Jesus, new birth, eternal life, and belief and unbelief.
A plain takeaway is to answer the verse's own emphasis on "understand" and "speech" with trust shaped by these words, not by a vague optimism outside the passage.