This took a while to compile but Jehovah’s Witnesses constantly claim that Jesus is never worshipped in the Bible, relying proskuneo and double standards to alter the Greek text. Guess what? He actually is worshipped in Daniel 7:14, and the Greek and Aramaic completely destroy their theology.

Because of this, Witnesses are trapped with only two options:

1. Admit Jesus is Almighty God, which is why He receives this specific worship.
2. Admit that God explicitly commands blatant idolatry in the scriptures.

TS; WM (Too short; Want more)

Part 1: The Greek Text (Latreuo)

When Christians point to verses where people worship Jesus in the New Testament, the Greek word used is almost always προσκυνέω (proskuneo).

The Watchtower organization exploits this by correctly noting that proskuneo is a broad term. It can mean absolute divine worship, but it can also simply mean honor, bowing down, or showing respect to a king or superior. Because of this ambiguity, the NWT systematically translates proskuneo as worship when directed at Jehovah but changes it to obeisance whenever it is directed at Jesus.

However, the Greek language has a completely different, highly specialized word that carries zero ambiguity: λατρεύω (latreuo)

Latreuo:
Latreuo refers strictly to sacred, cultic, religious service and worship due to a deity alone.

Every single Jehovah's Witness will readily agree to this factual premise:

"Jehovah alone receives latreuo."

If anyone else were to receive latreuo, it would be explicit idolatry. In fact, in the New World Translation Reference Bible, the appendix explicitly tie latreuo to sacred service reserved exclusively for God.

​​Insight on the Scriptures on Sacred Service

​Watchtower, October 1, 1976 pp 15, 16

When Satan asks Jesus to worship him in Matthew 4:10, Jesus quotes Deuteronomy and says: "It is Jehovah your God you must worship (proskuneo), and to him alone you must render sacred service (latreuo)."

The JW position relies on a single absolute claim: Jesus never receives latreuo in Scripture.

Until we open the oldest version of Daniel 7:14.

The Septuagint & The Old Greek Evidence
In Daniel 7:13-14, Daniel sees a vision of the Son of Man approaching the Ancient of Days in heaven.

"And to him there was given dominion and honor and a kingdom, that the peoples, national groups and languages should all serve him." (Daniel 7:14)

When the pre-Christian Jewish rabbis translated the Hebrew and Aramaic Scriptures into Greek they had to choose a Greek word to describe the type of service the Son of Man receives from all nations.

In the textual history of the Septuagint, there are two main text-types for the Book of Daniel:

Theodotion Version: a later Greek revision from the 2nd century AD The Theodotion translates the verse using douleuo (to serve/be subject to).

Old Greek: The original, older translation of the Septuagint). It explicitly uses the word λατρεύω (latreuo) This is the version later scribes often copied.

In the original, oldest Greek translation of Daniel, the very scriptures used, recognized, and quoted by the Apostles and the early Church state unequivocally that all nations, peoples, and tongues will render λατρεύουσα (latreuousa, a participle form of latreuo) to Jesus Christ, the Son of Man.

Why the Old Greek Reading is Superior
A Jehovah's Witness might try to handwave this by saying,

"Oh well, some Greek versions say douleuo, so it's a contradiction.

Here's why the Old Greek reading stands supreme:

1. Chronological Primacy: The Old Greek represents the earliest layer of Jewish translation long before the advent of Christianity. It shows exactly how ancient, non-Christian Jews understood the divine profile of the coming Messiah

2. Explicit New Testament Citation: The Apostles deliberately favored the Old Greek over the Aramaic/Theodotion traditions. In Matthew 24:30 and 26:64, Jesus and Matthew choose the unique Old Greek preposition epi ("upon" the clouds), rather than Theodotion's meta ("with" the clouds).

3. It's Structurally Linked to Revelation: The imagery in Revelation 1:13-14 is a mathematical match for the Old Greek, the Son of Man is a separate figure traveling to the Ancient of Days. In the Old Greek, the two figures merge, textually stating the Son of Man appears as (hōs) the Ancient of Days. In the original Theodotion text of Daniel 7, the "one like a son of man" has no description of white hair only the Ancient of Days has hair like pure white wool (Daniel 7:9).

The Dilemma
By the standards of early Greek-speaking Judaism and the text of the Old Greek Septuagint, Jesus Christ receives the exact type of worship reserved exclusively for the Almighty.
If a Jehovah's Witness accepts the Old Greek reading of Daniel 7:14, their entire theological framework collapses: Jesus receives latreuo, meaning Jesus is God. If they reject it and claim the Son of Man is a seperate, created arch angel who is receiving latreuo, they are forced to admit that the early scriptures sanction blatant idolatry by giving a creature the worship due to God alone.

Part 2: The Masoretic vs. LXX & The Aramaic

When a Jehovah's Witness is backed into a corner by the Old Greek Septuagint, they will instinctively deploy their ultimate defense shield:

"Oh well, the Septuagint is just a translation. The Masoretic Text (the Jewish translation) is the authoritative, inspired word of God, and it just says serve, not worship!"

This is how you expose the flaws of the Masoretic Text, and then use the Aramaic against their own argument.

Step 1: Debunking the Authority of the Masoretic Text
The Watchtower teaches its followers that the Masoretic Text is pretty much a flawless copy of the original Hebrew and Aramaic texr. This is historically and textually false.

1. The Timeline Gap: The Septuagint (LXX) was translated by Jewish scribes between 200–300 BC. The oldest complete copies of the Masoretic Text (like the Leningrad Codex) date to around 1000 AD.

The Septuagint is textually 1,200 years older than the Masoretic Text.

2. The Apostles' Choice: When Jesus and the Apostles quoted the Old Testament in the New Testament, they quoted the Septuagint roughly 85% of the time. If the Septuagint was good enough to be treated as the authoritative word of God by Jesus and the Apostles, a Jehovah's Witness has no right to call it unreliable.

3. Dead Sea Scrolls Confirmation: Discovered in 1947 and dating back to before the time of Christ, the Dead Sea Scrolls contain fragments of almost every Old Testament book. Crucially, in places where the Septuagint and the Masoretic text disagree, the Dead Sea Scrolls frequently side with the Septuagint against the Masoretic text. (Genesis 4:8, Genesis 46:27, Exodus 1:5, Exodus 12:40, Deuteronomy 32:8, 1 Samuel 10:27–11:1, 1 Samuel 11:1–2, 1 Samuel 14:41, Psalm 22:16, Psalm 145:13 etc)

4. Theological Alterations in the MT: The Masoretic Text was compiled by non-Christian Jews centuries AFTER Christ. Scribes had an active theological bias to obscure explicit messianic prophecies that Christians were using to prove Jesus was God. For example:

Psalm 22:16: The LXX says "They pierced my hands and my feet" (clearly predicting the crucifixion). The Masoretic Text changed it to "Like a lion are my hands and my feet," which makes no sense.

Isaiah 7:14: The LXX correctly uses Virgin, which Matthew quotes. The MT uses Young woman, trying to strip away the miraculous nature of Christ's birth.

The Masoretic Text is not an infallible, untouched gold standard. It is a medieval manuscript tradition that contains documented copyist errors and anti-Christian editorial shifts.

Step 2: Granting the Aramaic Text
Even if we completely surrender the Septuagint and look at the Masoretic Text, THEY STILL LOSE!
The Book of Daniel from chapter 2:4 to chapter 7:28 was not written in Hebrew; it was written in Aramaic. In Daniel 7:14, the text states that all peoples, nations, and languages should "serve" the Son of Man. The underlying Aramaic word used here is:

פְּלַח(pᵊlaḥ/pelach)

The Watchtower's New World Translation renders pelach here as serve. They will probably tell JWs,

"See? It just means regular degular, political service to a king."

But let's actually look at the context of how pelach is used everywhere else in the Bible.

pelach appears only 10 times in the entire Old Testament (9 times in Daniel, 1 time in Ezra). Outside of Daniel 7:14, every single time it is used, it refers exclusively to religious, cultic worship given to a deity. It is never used for ordinary human service.

Daniel 3:12, 14, 18: Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego refuse to serve (pelach) Nebuchadnezzar’s false gods.
Daniel 3:17: They declare, “Our God whom we serve (pelach) is able to deliver us.”
Daniel 3:28: The king marvels that they yielded their bodies rather than serve (pelach) or worship any god except their own God.
Daniel 6:16, 20: King Darius says to Daniel in the lions’ den, “Your God whom you serve (pelach) continually, he will deliver you.”
Ezra 7:24: Refers to the “ministers/servants (palche)” of the House of God.

If a human master or king wants ordinary political or domestic service, Aramaic has other words (like abad). But pelach is the specialized word for divine reverence and cultic devotion.

Therefore, when Daniel 7:14 says all nations will render pelach to the Son of Man, it is telling us that the Messiah receives the exact same category of religious worship that Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego chose to be burned alive rather than give to a created being.

Step 3: The Expert Consensus
To prove this isn't just your personal interpretation, here is what the leading academic and biblical scholars say about the word pelach in Daniel 7:14. You can quote these sources directly to silence Watchtower hand-waving:

“…in every other instance where the verb pelach (‘worship’; ‘serve,’ NRSV) occurs in biblical Aramaic (nine times), it has reference to service (worship) rendered a deity (Dan. 3:12, 17–18, 28; 6:16, 20; 7:14; Ezra 7:24).” -Stephan R. Miller

“Pelach… ‘to labour, to serve… especially to serve or worship God… Dan. 3:12ff; 7:14, 27.’”
-Wilhelm Gesenius

“Pay reverence to, serve (deity).” -Francis Brown, Samuel Rolles Driver, and Charles Augustus Briggs (BDB)

More sources:

​​Want even more sources? Read it on this website
Here it is

The oldest copies of the Bible the Apostles used explicitly say Jesus receives latreuo, the exact cultic worship JWs admit belongs only to Jehovah.

Even if they run to the Masoretic Text, the original language uses pelach, a word that everywhere else in the Bible means rendering divine worship to a god.

Whether they choose Greek or Aramaic, the text forces them into a delicious contradiction: either Jesus is Almighty God, or the Bible commands the universe to commit idolatry by worshiping a creature.