John 2:4
John 2:44“Woman, why does this concern us?” Jesus replied. “My hour has not yet come.”
Reasoning From the Scriptures reads Jesus' words to Mary at Cana — translated traditionally as "Woman, what have I to do with thee?" — as a rebuke, evidence that Jesus rejected any special Marian authority. The verse is used to argue against Catholic Marian devotion. Witnesses sometimes also use it as a general warning that even Jesus' mother got no privileged access — so no human mediator does either.
Two corrections turn the verse around. First, the Greek "ti emoi kai soi, gynai" is a literal word-for-word rendering of the Hebrew idiom "mah-li va-lak," which appears in , , , , and . In every Old Testament occurrence the idiom signals distance of intent or non-alignment of agenda — not contempt or rejection. Jesus is telling his mother that his messianic timing is not set by her social cue: his hour has not yet come. Second, read what happens next. In verse 5 Mary tells the servants "Do whatever he tells you," and in verse 7 Jesus turns the water into wine. He performs the miracle. If verse 4 were a rejection, verses 5 and 7 would contradict it. And the same Greek vocative "gynai" ("Woman") is what Jesus uses to Mary from the cross in — the tenderest moment in the Gospel.
The NWT smooths the abrupt Greek "Ti emoi kai soi" into "why is that of concern to me and to you" — a paraphrase rather than a word-for-word translation. The idiomatic literal translation ("what have I to do with thee" / "what does this have to do with me") is what most English versions retain. The NWT's smoothing is not strictly wrong, but it severs the verse from its Old Testament parallels in and elsewhere — parallels that are decisive for reading the verse correctly. Compare in the NWT, where the same Hebrew idiom is rendered "What do you have against me?" — different smoothing, different effect, same idiom underneath.