Matius 3:10

3:10 Even now the ax is laid at ¹  the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.

Matius 5:17

Fulfillment of the Law and Prophets

5:17 “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have not come to abolish these things but to fulfill them. ² 

Matius 7:24

Hearing and Doing

7:24 “Everyone ³  who hears these words of mine and does them is like ⁴  a wise man ⁵  who built his house on rock.

Matius 7:26

7:26 Everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them is like a foolish man who built his house on sand.

Matius 10:18

10:18 And you will be brought before governors and kings ⁶  because of me, as a witness to them and the Gentiles.

Matius 10:26

Fear God, Not Man

10:26 “Do ⁷  not be afraid of them, for nothing is hidden ⁸  that will not be revealed, ⁹  and nothing is secret that will not be made known.

Matius 11:11

11:11 “I tell you the truth, ¹⁰  among those born of women, no one has arisen greater than John the Baptist. Yet the one who is least ¹¹  in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he is.

Matius 11:20

Woes on Unrepentant Cities

11:20 Then Jesus began to criticize openly the cities ¹²  in which he had done many of his miracles, because they did not repent.

Matius 12:1

Lord of the Sabbath

12:1 At that time Jesus went through the grain fields on a Sabbath. His ¹³  disciples were hungry, and they began to pick heads of wheat ¹⁴  and eat them.

Matius 12:7

12:7 If ¹⁵  you had known what this means: ‘I want mercy and not sacrifice,’ ¹⁶  you would not have condemned the innocent.

Matius 12:22

Jesus and Beelzebul

12:22 Then they brought to him a demon-possessed man who was blind and mute. Jesus ¹⁷  healed him so that he could speak and see. ¹⁸ 

Matius 13:19

13:19 When anyone hears the word about the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one ¹⁹  comes and snatches what was sown in his heart; ²⁰  this is the seed sown along the path.

Matius 13:32

13:32 It is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest garden plant and becomes a tree, ²¹  so that the wild birds ²²  come and nest in its branches.” ²³ 

Matius 13:35

13:35 This fulfilled what was spoken by the prophet: ²⁴ 

“I will open my mouth in parables,

I will announce what has been hidden from the foundation of the world.” ²⁵ 

Matius 13:48

13:48 When it was full, they pulled it ashore, sat down, and put the good fish into containers and threw the bad away.

Matius 13:52

13:52 Then he said to them, “Therefore every expert in the law ²⁶  who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like the owner of a house who brings out of his treasure what is new and old.”

Matius 18:19

18:19 Again, I tell you the truth, ²⁷  if two of you on earth agree about whatever you ask, my Father in heaven will do it for you. ²⁸ 

Matius 19:9

19:9 Now I say to you that whoever divorces his wife, except for immorality, and marries another commits adultery.”

Matius 21:41-42

21:41 They said to him, “He will utterly destroy those evil men! Then he will lease the vineyard to other tenants who will give him his portion at the harvest.”

21:42 Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the scriptures:

‘The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. ²⁹ 

This is from the Lord, and it is marvelous in our eyes’? ³⁰ 

Matius 22:10

22:10 And those slaves went out into the streets and gathered all they found, both bad and good, and the wedding hall was filled with guests.

Matius 24:14

24:14 And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached throughout the whole inhabited earth as a testimony to all the nations, ³¹  and then the end will come.

Matius 24:21

24:21 For then there will be great suffering ³²  unlike anything that has happened ³³  from the beginning of the world until now, or ever will happen.

Matius 25:14

The Parable of the Talents

25:14 “For it is like a man going on a journey, who summoned his slaves ³⁴  and entrusted his property to them.

Matius 26:18

26:18 He ³⁵  said, “Go into the city to a certain man and tell him, ‘The Teacher says, “My time is near. I will observe the Passover with my disciples at your house.”’”

Matius 26:29

26:29 I ³⁶  tell you, from now on I will not drink of this fruit ³⁷  of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom.”

Matius 26:57

Condemned by the Sanhedrin

26:57 Now the ones who had arrested Jesus led him to Caiaphas, the high priest, in whose house ³⁸  the experts in the law ³⁹  and the elders had gathered.

Matius 27:21

27:21 The ⁴⁰  governor asked them, “Which of the two do you want me to release for you?” And they said, “Barabbas!”

[3:10]  ¹ sn Laid at the root. That is, placed and aimed, ready to begin cutting.

[5:17]  ² tn Grk “not come to abolish but to fulfill.” Direct objects (“these things,” “them”) were frequently omitted in Greek when clear from the context, but have been supplied here to conform to contemporary English style.

[7:24]  ³ tn Grk “Therefore everyone.” Here οὖν (oun) has not been translated.

[7:24]  ⁴ tn Grk “will be like.” The same phrase occurs in v. 26.

[7:24]  ⁵ tn Here and in v. 26 the Greek text reads ἀνήρ (anhr), while the parallel account in Luke 6:47-49 uses ἄνθρωπος (anqrwpo") in vv. 48 and 49.

[10:18]  ⁶ sn These statements look at persecution both from a Jewish context as the mention of courts and synagogues suggests, and from a Gentile one as the reference to governors and kings suggests. Some fulfillment of Jewish persecution can be seen in Acts.

[10:26]  ⁷ tn Grk “Therefore do not.” Here οὖν (oun) has not been translated.

[10:26]  ⁸ tn Or “concealed.”

[10:26]  ⁹ sn I.e., be revealed by God. The passive voice here and in the next verb see the revelation as coming from God. The text is both a warning about bad things being revealed and an encouragement that good things will be made known.

[11:11]  ¹⁰ tn Grk “Truly (ἀμήν, amhn), I say to you.”

[11:11]  ¹¹ sn After John comes a shift of eras. The new era is so great that the lowest member of it (the one who is least in the kingdom of God) is greater than the greatest one of the previous era.

[11:20]  ¹² tn The Greek word here is πόλις (polis) which can be translated “city” or “town.” “Cities” was chosen here to emphasize the size of the places Jesus’ mentions in the following verses.

[12:1]  ¹³ tn Here δέ (de) has not been translated.

[12:1]  ¹⁴ tn Or “heads of grain.” While the generic term στάχυς (stacus) can refer to the cluster of seeds at the top of grain such as barley or wheat, in the NT the term is restricted to wheat (L&N 3.40; BDAG 941 s.v. 1).

[12:7]  ¹⁵ tn Here δέ (de) has not been translated.

[12:7]  ¹⁶ sn A quotation from Hos 6:6 (see also Matt 9:13).

[12:22]  ¹⁷ tn Grk “And he”; the referent (Jesus) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[12:22]  ¹⁸ tn Grk “demoniac, and he healed him, so that the mute man spoke and saw.”

[13:19]  ¹⁹ 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.

[13:19]  ²⁰ 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.

[13:32]  ²¹ sn This is rhetorical hyperbole, since technically a mustard plant is not a tree. This could refer to one of two types of mustard plant popular in Palestine and would be either ten or twenty-five ft (3 or 7.5 m) tall.

[13:32]  ²² tn Grk “the birds of the sky” or “the birds of the heaven”; the Greek word οὐρανός (ouranos) may be translated either “sky” or “heaven,” depending on the context. The idiomatic expression “birds of the sky” refers to wild birds as opposed to domesticated fowl (cf. BDAG 809 s.v. πετεινόν).

[13:32]  ²³ sn The point of the parable seems to be that while the kingdom of God may appear to have insignificant and unnoticeable beginnings (i.e., in the ministry of Jesus), it will someday (i.e., at the second advent) be great and quite expansive. The kingdom, however, is not to be equated with the church, but rather the church is an expression of the kingdom. Also, there is important OT background in the image of the mustard seed that grew and became a tree: Ezek 17:22-24 pictures the reemergence of the Davidic house where people can find calm and shelter. Like the mustard seed, it would start out small but grow to significant size.

[13:35]  ²⁴ tc A few important mss (א* Θ Ë^1,13 33) identify the prophet as Isaiah, a reading that is significantly harder than the generic “prophet” because the source of this prophecy is not Isaiah but Asaph in Ps 78. Jerome mentioned some mss that had “Asaph” here, though none are known to exist today. This problem is difficult because of the temptation for scribes to delete the reference to Isaiah in order to clear up a discrepancy. Indeed, the vast majority of witnesses have only “the prophet” here (א¹ B C D L W 0233 0242 Ï lat sy co). However, as B. M. Metzger points out, “if no prophet were originally named, more than one scribe might have been prompted to insert the name of the best known prophet – something which has, in fact, happened elsewhere more than once” (TCGNT 27). In light of the paucity of evidence for the reading ᾿Ησαΐου, as well as the proclivity of scribes to add his name, it is probably best to consider the shorter reading as authentic.

[13:35]  tn Grk “was spoken by the prophet, saying.” The participle λέγοντος (legontos) is redundant in contemporary English and has not been translated.

[13:35]  ²⁵ sn A quotation from Ps 78:2.

[13:52]  ²⁶ tn Or “every scribe.” See the note on the phrase “experts in the law” in 2:4. It is possible that the term translated “expert in the law” (traditionally, “scribe”) here is a self-description used by the author, Matthew, to represent his role in conveying the traditions about Jesus to his intended audience. See David E. Orton, The Understanding Scribe [JSNTSup].

[18:19]  ²⁷ tn Grk “Truly (ἀμήν, amhn), I say to you.”

[18:19]  ²⁸ tn Grk “if two of you…agree about whatever they ask, it will be done for them by my Father who is in heaven.” The passive construction has been translated as an active one in keeping with contemporary English style, and the pronouns, which change from second person plural to third person plural in the Greek text, have been consistently translated as second person plural.

[21:42]  ²⁹ tn Or “capstone,” “keystone.” Although these meanings are lexically possible, the imagery in Eph 2:20-22 and 1 Cor 3:11 indicates that the term κεφαλὴ γωνίας (kefalh gwnia") refers to a cornerstone, not a capstone.

[21:42]  sn The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. The use of Ps 118:22-23 and the “stone imagery” as a reference to Christ and his suffering and exaltation is common in the NT (see also Mark 12:10; Luke 20:17; Acts 4:11; 1 Pet 2:6-8; cf. also Eph 2:20). The irony in the use of Ps 118:22-23 here is that in the OT, Israel was the one rejected (or perhaps her king) by the Gentiles, but in the NT it is Jesus who is rejected by Israel.

[21:42]  ³⁰ sn A quotation from Ps 118:22-23.

[24:14]  ³¹ tn Or “all the Gentiles” (the same Greek word may be translated “nations” or “Gentiles”).

[24:21]  ³² tn Traditionally, “great tribulation.”

[24:21]  ³³ sn Suffering unlike anything that has happened. Some refer this event to the destruction of Jerusalem in a.d. 70. While the events of a.d. 70 may reflect somewhat the comments Jesus makes here, the reference to the scope and severity of this judgment strongly suggest that much more is in view. Most likely Jesus is referring to the great end-time judgment on Jerusalem in the great tribulation.

[25:14]  ³⁴ tn See the note on the word “slave” in 8:9.

[26:18]  ³⁵ tn Here δέ (de) has not been translated.

[26:29]  ³⁶ tn Here δέ (de) has not been translated.

[26:29]  ³⁷ tn Grk “produce” (“the produce of the vine” is a figurative expression for wine).

[26:57]  ³⁸ tn Grk “where.”

[26:57]  ³⁹ tn Or “where the scribes.” See the note on the phrase “experts in the law” in 2:4.

[27:21]  ⁴⁰ tn Grk “answering, the governor said to them.” This construction is somewhat redundant in English and has been simplified in the translation. Here δέ (de) has not been translated.