Matthew 7:11-13
New American Bible (Revised Edition)
11 If you then, who are wicked, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good things to those who ask him.(A)
The Golden Rule. 12 [a]“Do to others whatever you would have them do to you.(B) This is the law and the prophets.
The Narrow Gate. 13 [b]“Enter through the narrow gate;[c] for the gate is wide and the road broad that leads to destruction, and those who enter through it are many.(C)
Read full chapterFootnotes
- 7:12 See Lk 6:31. This saying, known since the eighteenth century as the “Golden Rule,” is found in both positive and negative form in pagan and Jewish sources, both earlier and later than the gospel. This is the law and the prophets is an addition probably due to the evangelist.
- 7:13–28 The final section of the discourse is composed of a series of antitheses, contrasting two kinds of life within the Christian community, that of those who obey the words of Jesus and that of those who do not. Most of the sayings are from Q and are found also in Luke.
- 7:13–14 The metaphor of the “two ways” was common in pagan philosophy and in the Old Testament. In Christian literature it is found also in the Didache (1–6) and the Epistle of Barnabas (18–20).
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