Matthew 7

The TorahRooted Bible (TRB), translated directly from the Hebrew and Greek.

Do not judge

¹ "Do not judge, so that you are not judged. ² For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. ³ And why do you look at the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye? ⁴ Or how can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye'; and see, a plank is in your own eye? ⁵ Hypocrite! First take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye.

⁶ "Do not give what is holy to the dogs, nor throw your pearls before the pigs, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces.

Ask, seek, knock

⁷ "Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. ⁸ For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. ⁹ Or what man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? ¹⁰ Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent? ¹¹ If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him! ¹² Therefore, whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them, for this is the Torah and the Prophets.

The narrow gate

¹³ "Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. ¹⁴ How narrow is the gate and difficult is the way that leads to life, and few are those who find it!

¹⁵ "Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. ¹⁶ You will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? ¹⁷ Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears evil fruit. ¹⁸ A good tree cannot bear evil fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. ¹⁹ Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. ²⁰ So then, by their fruits you will know them.

²¹ "Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of My Father who is in heaven. ²² Many will say to Me in that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name do many mighty works?' ²³ And then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!'

The two builders

²⁴ "Therefore everyone who hears these words of Mine and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock; ²⁵ and the rain came down, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock. ²⁶ And everyone who hears these words of Mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand; ²⁷ and the rain came down, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house; and it fell, and great was its fall."

²⁸ And so it was, when Yeshua had ended these sayings, that the crowds were astonished at His teaching, ²⁹ for He taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.

Notes

• 7:12 Yeshua sums up "the Torah and the Prophets," the Scriptures of Israel, in one rule that unfolds "you shall love your neighbor as yourself" (Leviticus 19:18; compare 22:39-40). Similar sayings in negative form were known among Jews: "What you hate, do not do to anyone" (Tobit 4:15, before the first century), and a well-known story in the Talmud (Shabbat 31a, written down centuries later) has Hillel tell a would-be convert, "What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow; that is the whole Torah."
• 7:13 The choice between two ways goes back to Moses, "See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil" (Deuteronomy 30:15), and to Jeremiah, "See, I set before you the way of life and the way of death" (Jeremiah 21:8). The same picture of two ways appears in the Dead Sea Scrolls and in the early Jewish-Christian teaching called the Didache.
• 7:23 "Lawlessness" is anomia, from a-, "without," and nomos, "law," the same word John uses: "sin is lawlessness" (1 John 3:4). Since nomos is the usual Greek word for the Torah, many read it here as a life lived apart from Elohim's Torah, even while using Yeshua's name. "Depart from Me" echoes Psalm 6:8, "Depart from me, all you workers of iniquity," where the Greek translation of the Psalm uses this same word.
• 7:24 The Sermon ends where the Shema begins: in Hebrew, "hear" (shama) also means to heed and obey (Deuteronomy 6:4-6). Both builders heard the same words; only one did them.
• 7:29 The scribes usually taught by handing on the Torah's meaning as their teachers had explained it; Yeshua spoke in His own name: "But I say to you" (5:22, 28, 32, 34, 39, 44). "These sayings" closes the Sermon, the first of five long teachings in Matthew, each ending with similar words (11:1; 13:53; 19:1; 26:1).

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