“¶ They answered him, We be Abraham seed, and were neuer in bondage to any man: how sayest thou, Yee shall be made free?”
1611 King James Version (KJV)
8:33 They - The other Jews that were by, (not those that believed,) as appears by the whole tenor of the conversation. We were never enslaved to any man - A bold, notorious untruth. At that very time they were enslaved to the Romans.
Joh 8:33 We be Abraham's seed, and were never in bondage. They trusted in their blood, rather than in obedience to the God of Abraham. Their proud language was false. Their nation had been in bondage for over six hundred years to Babylon, to Persia, to Macedon, to Syria, to Rome. They were also in bondage to sin.