Matius 12:35

12:35 The good person ¹  brings good things out of his ²  good treasury, ³  and the evil person brings evil things out of his evil treasury.

Matius 20:15

20:15 Am I not ⁴  permitted to do what I want with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?’ ⁵ 

Matius 6:23

6:23 But if your eye is diseased, ⁶  your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!

Matius 13:19

13:19 When anyone hears the word about the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one ⁷  comes and snatches what was sown in his heart; ⁸  this is the seed sown along the path.

¹ tn The Greek text reads here ἄνθρωπος (anqrwpos). The term is generic referring to any person.

² tn Grk “the”; the Greek article has been translated here and in the following clause (“his evil treasury”) as a possessive pronoun (ExSyn 215).

³ sn The treasury here is a metaphorical reference to a person’s heart (cf. BDAG 456 s.v. θησαυρός 1.b and the parallel passage in Luke 6:45).

⁴ tc ‡ Before οὐκ (ouk, “[am I] not”) a number of significant witnesses read ἤ (h, “or”; e.g., א C W 085 Ë^1,13 33 and most others). Although in later Greek the οι in σοι (oi in soi) – the last word of v. 14 – would have been pronounced like ἤ, since ἤ is lacking in early mss (B D; among later witnesses, note L Z Θ 700) and since mss were probably copied predominantly by sight rather than by sound, even into the later centuries, the omission of ἤ cannot be accounted for as easily. Thus the shorter reading is most likely original. NA²⁷ includes the word in brackets, indicating doubts as to its authenticity.

⁵ tn Grk “Is your eye evil because I am good?”

⁶ tn Or “if your eye is sick” (L&N 23.149).

sn There may be a slight wordplay here, as this term can also mean “evil,” so the figure uses a term that points to the real meaning of being careful as to what one pays attention to or looks at.

⁷ sn Interestingly, the synoptic parallels each use a different word for Satan here: Mark 4:15 has “Satan,” while Luke 8:12 has “the devil.” This illustrates the fluidity of the gospel tradition in often using synonyms at the same point of the parallel tradition.

⁸ sn The word of Jesus has the potential to save if it germinates in a person’s heart, something the devil is very much against.