Revelation 22:8-9
Revelation 22:8-98And I am John, who heard and saw these things. And when I had heard and seen them, I fell down to worship at the feet of the angel who had shown me these things. 9But he said to me, “Do not do that! I am a fellow servant with you and your brothers the prophets, and with those who keep the words of this book. Worship God!”
JWs cite the angel's refusal — "Be careful! Do not do that! I am only a fellow slave of you and of your brothers… Worship God!" — as the defining proof that proskuneō means religious worship reserved exclusively for Jehovah, and that any creature who accepts it commits blasphemy. The verse is one of the Watchtower's go-to texts for rejecting the worship of Jesus.
This verse is the strongest possible vindication of Jesus' deity precisely because of how strict it is about worship. The angel refuses proskuneō and redirects John to God. So does Peter (). Yet Jesus accepts proskuneō repeatedly and never once redirects: from the Magi (Matt 2:11), the leper (Matt 8:2), the ruler (Matt 9:18), the disciples after walking on water (Matt 14:33), the Canaanite woman (Matt 15:25), the mother of James and John (Matt 20:20), the women at the tomb (Matt 28:9), the eleven on the mountain (Matt 28:17), the healed blind man (), and Thomas (). The book of Revelation contains the worship- refusal scene in chapter 22 — and the joint-worship scene in chapter 5 where every creature in heaven and earth worships "the One sitting on the throne and the Lamb" forever and ever, with no rebuke. Same book, same author, same word: faithful angels refuse it; the Lamb accepts it. Either Jesus shares the divine identity or he committed the very sin the angel of Rev 22:9 explicitly condemns.
The NWT preserves the Greek faithfully here ("Worship God!" — at v.9 the NWT does render proskuneō as "worship") because the recipient is God. The asymmetry with the NWT's renderings at Matt 14:33, 28:9, 28:17, , and Heb 1:6 (where the same Greek verb directed at Jesus becomes "do obeisance") is the entire point: the NWT cannot maintain its dual standard without surrendering this verse, and it cannot surrender this verse without making Jesus' acceptance of proskuneō indistinguishable from the angel-worship the verse forbids.