John 9:22,23

John 9:22-23. These things said his parents, because they feared the Jews: for the Jews had already covenanted that, if any man should confess that he was Christ, he should be put away from the synagogue. Therefore said his parents, He is of age; ask himself. There were (at all events at a later period) various degrees of excommunication; but in any form it was a punishment of great severity, as the terror of the parents shows. The effect of the mildest grade was to render the culprit a heathen and no longer an Israelite during thirty days, depriving him of all intercourse with his family as well as of all privileges of worship. The growing alarm and hatred of the Jews are clearly shown by this compact. We are not to think of a decree of the Sanhedrin, or of any judicial act whatever, but of a private resolution taken by the Jews amongst themselves. The slight change of translation in the words ‘put away from the synagogue' is intended to mark the fact that the expression used here is different from that which we find in John 9:34-35.