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Monday, July 7th, 2025
the Week of Proper 9 / Ordinary 14
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THE MESSAGE

Matthew 23:24

This verse is not available in the MSG!

Bible Study Resources

Concordances:

- Nave's Topical Bible - Blindness;   Church;   Ecclesiasticism;   Hypocrisy;   Pharisees;   Satire;   Teachers;   Thompson Chain Reference - Animals;   Camels;   Insects;   The Topic Concordance - Blindness;   Guidance;   Hypocrisy;   Torrey's Topical Textbook - Blindness, Spiritual;   Camel, the;   Hypocrites;   Insects;   Pharisees, the;  

Dictionaries:

- American Tract Society Bible Dictionary - Camel;   Gnat;   Pharisees;   Bridgeway Bible Dictionary - Hypocrisy;   Matthew, gospel of;   Pharisees;   Baker Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology - Anger;   Blindness;   Ethics;   Hypocrisy;   Worship;   Charles Buck Theological Dictionary - Supralapsarians;   Easton Bible Dictionary - Camel;   Drink;   Gnat;   Strain at;   Fausset Bible Dictionary - Gnat;   Judas Iscariot;   Pharisees;   Strain;   Holman Bible Dictionary - Blindness;   Insects;   Matthew, the Gospel of;   Salutation;   Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible - Camel;   Gnat;   Hypocrite;   Judas Iscariot;   Scribes;   Sin;   Text of the New Testament;   Wine and Strong Drink;   Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament - Animals;   Camel, Camel's Hair;   Children of God;   Claim;   Common Life;   Courage;   Discourse;   Error;   Ethics (2);   Guide;   Judgment;   Law of God;   Lawlessness;   Manuscripts;   Mental Characteristics;   Metaphors;   Paradox;   Profaning, Profanity;   Property (2);   Proverbs ;   Reality;   Sabbath ;   Sacrifice (2);   Sanctify, Sanctification;   Self-Control;   Sifting;   Teaching of Jesus;   Woe;   Morrish Bible Dictionary - Blindness;   Camel;   Gnat;   Scribes;   The Hawker's Poor Man's Concordance And Dictionary - Pharisee;   Scribe;   People's Dictionary of the Bible - Obsolete or obscure words in the english av bible;   Pharisees;   Scribe;   Smith Bible Dictionary - Strain at;   Wilson's Dictionary of Bible Types - Camel;   Nat;   Swallow;   Watson's Biblical & Theological Dictionary - Flies;   Gnat;  

Encyclopedias:

- Condensed Biblical Cyclopedia - Jesus of Nazareth;   International Standard Bible Encyclopedia - Camel;   Games;   Gnat;   Guide;   Jesus Christ (Part 2 of 2);   Needle;   Strain;   The Jewish Encyclopedia - Fly;   Hypocrisy;   Nomism;   Pharisees;  

Parallel Translations

Christian Standard Bible®
Blind guides!
King James Version (1611)
Ye blind guides, which straine at a gnat, and swallow a camel.
King James Version
Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel.
English Standard Version
You blind guides, straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel!
New American Standard Bible
"You blind guides, who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel!
New Century Version
You guide the people, but you are blind! You are like a person who picks a fly out of a drink and then swallows a camel!
Amplified Bible
"You [spiritually] blind guides, who strain out a gnat [consuming yourselves with miniscule matters] and swallow a camel [ignoring and violating God's precepts]!
New American Standard Bible (1995)
"You blind guides, who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel!
Legacy Standard Bible
You blind guides, who strain out a gnat but swallow a camel!
Berean Standard Bible
You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.
Contemporary English Version
You blind leaders! You strain out a small fly but swallow a camel.
Complete Jewish Bible
Blind guides! — straining out a gnat, meanwhile swallowing a camel!
Darby Translation
Blind guides, who strain out the gnat, but drink down the camel.
Easy-to-Read Version
You guide the people, but you are blind! Think about a man picking a little fly out of his drink and then swallowing a camel! You are like that.
Geneva Bible (1587)
Ye blinde guides, which straine out a gnat, and swallowe a camell.
George Lamsa Translation
O blind guides, who strain at gnats and swallow camels!
Good News Translation
Blind guides! You strain a fly out of your drink, but swallow a camel!
Lexham English Bible
Blind guides who filter out a gnat and swallow a camel!
Literal Translation
Blind guides, straining out the gnat, but swallowing the camel!
American Standard Version
Ye blind guides, that strain out the gnat, and swallow the camel!
Bible in Basic English
You blind guides, who take out a fly from your drink, but make no trouble over a camel.
Hebrew Names Version
You blind guides, who strain out a gnat, and swallow a camel!
International Standard Version
You blind guides! You filter out a gnat, yet swallow a camel!
Etheridge Translation
You blind guides, who strain out gnats and swallow camels.
Murdock Translation
Ye blind guides, who strain out gnats, and swallow down camels.
Bishop's Bible (1568)
Ye blynde guides, which strayne out a gnat, and swalowe a Camel.
English Revised Version
Ye blind guides, which strain out the gnat, and swallow the camel.
World English Bible
You blind guides, who strain out a gnat, and swallow a camel!
Wesley's New Testament (1755)
Ye blind guides, who strain out a gnat, and swallow a camel.
Weymouth's New Testament
You blind guides, straining out the gnat while you gulp down the camel!
Wycliffe Bible (1395)
Blynde lederis, clensinge a gnatte, but swolewynge a camel.
Update Bible Version
You blind guides, that strain out the gnat, and swallow the camel!
Webster's Bible Translation
[Ye] blind guides, who strain out a gnat, and swallow a camel.
New English Translation
Blind guides! You strain out a gnat yet swallow a camel!
New King James Version
Blind guides, who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel!
New Living Translation
Blind guides! You strain your water so you won't accidentally swallow a gnat, but you swallow a camel!
New Life Bible
You blind leaders, you take a small bug out of your cup but you swallow a camel!
New Revised Standard
You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel!
J.B. Rotherham Emphasized Bible
Blind guides! Straining out the gnat, but, the camel, swallowing.
Douay-Rheims Bible
Blind guides, who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel.
Revised Standard Version
You blind guides, straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel!
Tyndale New Testament (1525)
Ye blinde gydes which strayne out a gnat and swalowe a cammyll.
Young's Literal Translation
`Blind guides! who are straining out the gnat, and the camel are swallowing.
Miles Coverdale Bible (1535)
O ye blynde gydes, which strayne out a gnat, but swalowe vp a Camell.
Mace New Testament (1729)
ye blind guides, who strain your liquor for a gnat, and swallow a beetle.
Simplified Cowboy Version
You blind trail guides will pick a piece of dirt out of your coffee, but then eat a mud pie.

Contextual Overview

13 "I've had it with you! You're hopeless, you religion scholars, you Pharisees! Frauds! Your lives are roadblocks to God's kingdom. You refuse to enter, and won't let anyone else in either. "You're hopeless, you religion scholars and Pharisees! Frauds! You go halfway around the world to make a convert, but once you get him you make him into a replica of yourselves, double-damned. "You're hopeless! What arrogant stupidity! You say, ‘If someone makes a promise with his fingers crossed, that's nothing; but if he swears with his hand on the Bible, that's serious.' What ignorance! Does the leather on the Bible carry more weight than the skin on your hands? And what about this piece of trivia: ‘If you shake hands on a promise, that's nothing; but if you raise your hand that God is your witness, that's serious'? What ridiculous hairsplitting! What difference does it make whether you shake hands or raise hands? A promise is a promise. What difference does it make if you make your promise inside or outside a house of worship? A promise is a promise. God is present, watching and holding you to account regardless. "You're hopeless, you religion scholars and Pharisees! Frauds! You keep meticulous account books, tithing on every nickel and dime you get, but on the meat of God's Law, things like fairness and compassion and commitment—the absolute basics!—you carelessly take it or leave it. Careful bookkeeping is commendable, but the basics are required. Do you have any idea how silly you look, writing a life story that's wrong from start to finish, nitpicking over commas and semicolons? "You're hopeless, you religion scholars and Pharisees! Frauds! You burnish the surface of your cups and bowls so they sparkle in the sun, while the insides are maggoty with your greed and gluttony. Stupid Pharisee! Scour the insides, and then the gleaming surface will mean something. "You're hopeless, you religion scholars and Pharisees! Frauds! You're like manicured grave plots, grass clipped and the flowers bright, but six feet down it's all rotting bones and worm-eaten flesh. People look at you and think you're saints, but beneath the skin you're total frauds. "You're hopeless, you religion scholars and Pharisees! Frauds! You build granite tombs for your prophets and marble monuments for your saints. And you say that if you had lived in the days of your ancestors, no blood would have been on your hands. You protest too much! You're cut from the same cloth as those murderers, and daily add to the death count. "Snakes! Reptilian sneaks! Do you think you can worm your way out of this? Never have to pay the piper? It's on account of people like you that I send prophets and wise guides and scholars generation after generation—and generation after generation you treat them like dirt, greeting them with lynch mobs, hounding them with abuse. "You can't squirm out of this: Every drop of righteous blood ever spilled on this earth, beginning with the blood of that good man Abel right down to the blood of Zechariah, Barachiah's son, whom you murdered at his prayers, is on your head. All this, I'm telling you, is coming down on you, on your generation. "Jerusalem! Jerusalem! Murderer of prophets! Killer of the ones who brought you God's news! How often I've ached to embrace your children, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you wouldn't let me. And now you're so desolate, nothing but a ghost town. What is there left to say? Only this: I'm out of here soon. The next time you see me you'll say, ‘Oh, God has blessed him! He's come, bringing God's rule!'" 14Religious Fashion Shows Now Jesus turned to address his disciples, along with the crowd that had gathered with them. "The religion scholars and Pharisees are competent teachers in God's Law. You won't go wrong in following their teachings on Moses. But be careful about following them. They talk a good line, but they don't live it. They don't take it into their hearts and live it out in their behavior. It's all spit-and-polish veneer. "Instead of giving you God's Law as food and drink by which you can banquet on God, they package it in bundles of rules, loading you down like pack animals. They seem to take pleasure in watching you stagger under these loads, and wouldn't think of lifting a finger to help. Their lives are perpetual fashion shows, embroidered prayer shawls one day and flowery prayers the next. They love to sit at the head table at church dinners, basking in the most prominent positions, preening in the radiance of public flattery, receiving honorary degrees, and getting called ‘Doctor' and ‘Reverend.' "Don't let people do that to you, put you on a pedestal like that. You all have a single Teacher, and you are all classmates. Don't set people up as experts over your life, letting them tell you what to do. Save that authority for God; let him tell you what to do. No one else should carry the title of ‘Father'; you have only one Father, and he's in heaven. And don't let people maneuver you into taking charge of them. There is only one Life-Leader for you and them—Christ. "Do you want to stand out? Then step down. Be a servant. If you puff yourself up, you'll get the wind knocked out of you. But if you're content to simply be yourself, your life will count for plenty. "I've had it with you! You're hopeless, you religion scholars, you Pharisees! Frauds! Your lives are roadblocks to God's kingdom. You refuse to enter, and won't let anyone else in either. 15 "You're hopeless, you religion scholars and Pharisees! Frauds! You go halfway around the world to make a convert, but once you get him you make him into a replica of yourselves, double-damned. 16"You're hopeless! What arrogant stupidity! You say, ‘If someone makes a promise with his fingers crossed, that's nothing; but if he swears with his hand on the Bible, that's serious.' What ignorance! Does the leather on the Bible carry more weight than the skin on your hands? And what about this piece of trivia: ‘If you shake hands on a promise, that's nothing; but if you raise your hand that God is your witness, that's serious'? What ridiculous hairsplitting! What difference does it make whether you shake hands or raise hands? A promise is a promise. What difference does it make if you make your promise inside or outside a house of worship? A promise is a promise. God is present, watching and holding you to account regardless. 23"You're hopeless, you religion scholars and Pharisees! Frauds! You keep meticulous account books, tithing on every nickel and dime you get, but on the meat of God's Law, things like fairness and compassion and commitment—the absolute basics!—you carelessly take it or leave it. Careful bookkeeping is commendable, but the basics are required. Do you have any idea how silly you look, writing a life story that's wrong from start to finish, nitpicking over commas and semicolons? 25"You're hopeless, you religion scholars and Pharisees! Frauds! You burnish the surface of your cups and bowls so they sparkle in the sun, while the insides are maggoty with your greed and gluttony. Stupid Pharisee! Scour the insides, and then the gleaming surface will mean something. 27"You're hopeless, you religion scholars and Pharisees! Frauds! You're like manicured grave plots, grass clipped and the flowers bright, but six feet down it's all rotting bones and worm-eaten flesh. People look at you and think you're saints, but beneath the skin you're total frauds. 29"You're hopeless, you religion scholars and Pharisees! Frauds! You build granite tombs for your prophets and marble monuments for your saints. And you say that if you had lived in the days of your ancestors, no blood would have been on your hands. You protest too much! You're cut from the same cloth as those murderers, and daily add to the death count. 33"Snakes! Reptilian sneaks! Do you think you can worm your way out of this? Never have to pay the piper? It's on account of people like you that I send prophets and wise guides and scholars generation after generation—and generation after generation you treat them like dirt, greeting them with lynch mobs, hounding them with abuse.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

Matthew 7:4, Matthew 15:2-6, Matthew 19:24, Matthew 27:6-8, Luke 6:7-10, John 18:28, John 18:40

Reciprocal: Job 20:18 - swallow Psalms 119:99 - than all Ecclesiastes 7:16 - Be not Isaiah 60:2 - the darkness Matthew 12:45 - Even Matthew 22:36 - General Matthew 23:16 - ye blind Mark 2:24 - why Mark 10:25 - General Luke 6:2 - Why Luke 18:12 - I give Luke 18:25 - a camel

Gill's Notes on the Bible

Ye blind guides,.... As in Matthew 23:16

who strain at a gnat and swallow a camel: the Syriac and Persic versions read the words in the plural number, gnats and camels. The Jews had a law, which forbid them the eating of any creeping thing,

Leviticus 11:41 and of this they were strictly observant, and would not be guilty of the breach of it for ever so much.

"One that eats a flea, or a gnat; they say p is מומר, "an apostate";''

one that has changed his religion, and is no more to be reckoned as one of them. Hence they very carefully strained their liquors, lest they should transgress the above command, and incur the character of an apostate; and at least, the penalty of being beaten with forty stripes, save one; for,

"whoever eats a whole fly, or a whole gnat, whether alive or dead, was to be beaten on account of a creeping flying thing q.''

Among the accusations Haman is said to bring against them to Ahasuerus, and the instances he gives of their laws being different from the king's, this one r; that

"if a fly falls into the cup of one of them, זורקו ושותהו, "he strains it, and drinks it"; but if my lord the king should touch the cup of one of them, he would throw it to the ground, and would not drink of it.''

Maimonides says s,

"He that strains wine, or vinegar, or strong liquor, and eats "Jabchushin" (a sort of small flies found in wine cellars t, on account of which they strained their wine), or gnats, or worms, which he hath strained off, is to be beaten on account of the creeping things of the water, or on account of the creeping flying things, and the creeping things of the water.''

Moreover, it is said u,

"a man might not pour his strong liquors through a strainer, by the light (of a candle or lamp), lest he should separate and leave in the top of the strainer (some creeping thing), and it should fail again into the cup, and he should transgress the law, in Leviticus 11:41.''

To this practice Christ alluded here; and so very strict and careful were they in this matter, that to strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel, became at length a proverb, to signify much solicitude about little things, and none about greater. These men would not, on any consideration, be guilty of such a crime, as not to pay the tithe of mint, anise, and cummin, and such like herbs and seeds; and yet made no conscience of doing justice, and showing mercy to men, or of exercising faith in God, or love to him. Just as many hypocrites, like them, make a great stir, and would appear very conscientious and scrupulous, about some little trifling things, and yet stick not, at other times, to commit the grossest enormities, and most scandalous sins in life.

p T. Bab. Avoda Zara, fol. 26. 2. & Horaiot, fol. 11. 1. q Mainon. Hilch. Maacolot Asurot, c. 2. sect. 22. r T. Bab. Megilla, fol, 13. 2. Vid. T. Hietos. Sota, fol. 17. 1. s Ubi supra, (Mainon. Hilch. Maacolot Asurot, c. 2.) sect. 20. t Gloss. in T. Bab. Cholin, fol. 67. 1. u Ib.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Which strain at a gnat ... - This is a proverb. There is, however, a mistranslation or misprint here, which makes the verse unmeaning. “To strain” at a “gnat” conveys no sense. It should have been to strain out a gnat; and so it is printed in some of the earlier versions, and so it was undoubtedly rendered by the translators. The common reading is a “misprint,” and should be corrected. The Greek means to “strain” out by a cloth or sieve.

A gnat - The gnat has its origin in the water; not in great rivers, but in pools and marshes In the stagnant waters they appear in the form of small “grubs” or “larvae.” These larvae retain their form about three weeks, after which they turn to chrysalids, and after three or four days they pass to the form of gnats. They are then distinguished by their well-known sharp sting. It is probable that the Saviour here refers to the insect as it exists in its “grub” or “larva” form, before it appears in the form of a gnat. Water is then its element, and those who were nice in their drink would take pains to strain it out. Hence, the proverb. See Calmet’s Dict., art. “Gnat.” It is used here to denote a very small matter, as a camel is to denote a large object. “You Jews take great pains to avoid offence in very small matters, superstitiously observing the smallest points of the law, like a man carefully straining out the animalculae from what he drinks, while you are at no pains to avoid great sins - hypocrisy, deceit, oppression, and lust - like a man who should swallow a camel.” The Arabians have a similar proverb: “He eats an elephant, and is suffocated with a gnat.” He is troubled with little things, but pays no attention to great matters.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse Matthew 23:24. Blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel. — This clause should be thus translated: Ye strain out the gnat, but ye swallow down the camel. In the common translation, Ye strain AT a gnat, conveys no sense. Indeed, it is likely to have been at first an error of the press, AT for OUT, which, on examination, I find escaped in the edition of 1611, and has been regularly continued since. There is now before me, "The Newe Testament, (both in Englyshe and in Laten,) of Mayster Erasmus translacion, imprynted by Wyllyam Powell, dwellynge in Flete strete: the yere of our Lorde M.CCCCC.XLVII. the fyrste yere of the kynges (Edwd. VI.) moste gracious reygne." in which the verse stands thus: "Ye blinde gides, which strayne out a gnat, and swalowe a cammel." It is the same also in Edmund Becke's Bible, printed in London 1549, and in several others. - Clensynge a gnatte. - MS. Eng. Bib. So Wickliff. Similar to this is the following Arabic proverb [Arabic]. He eats an elephant and is choked by a gnat.


 
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