Matthew 7:4

THE MESSAGE

Parallel Translations

Christian Standard Bible®
Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the splinter out of your eye,’ and look, there’s a beam of wood in your own eye?

King James Version (1611)
Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let mee pull out the mote out of thine eye, and beholde, a beame is in thine owne eye?

King James Version
Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye?

English Standard Version
Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when there is the log in your own eye?

New American Standard Bible
"Or how can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' and look, the log is in your own eye?

New Century Version
How can you say to your friend, ‘Let me take that little piece of dust out of your eye'? Look at yourself! You still have that big piece of wood in your own eye.

Amplified Bible
"Or how can you say to your brother, 'Let me get the speck out of your eye,' when there is a log in your own eye?

Geneva Bible (1587)
Or howe sayest thou to thy brother, Suffer me to cast out the mote out of thine eye, and beholde, a beame is in thine owne eye?

New American Standard Bible (1995)
"Or how can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' and behold, the log is in your own eye?

Legacy Standard Bible
Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,' and behold, the log is in your own eye?

Berean Standard Bible
How can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' while there is still a beam in your own eye?

Contemporary English Version
How can you say, "My friend, let me take the speck out of your eye," when you don't see the log in your own eye?

Complete Jewish Bible
How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the splinter out of your eye,' when you have the log in your own eye?

Darby Translation
Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Allow [me], I will cast out the mote from thine eye; and behold, the beam is in thine eye?

Easy-to-Read Version
Why do you say to your friend, ‘Let me take that piece of dust out of your eye'? Look at yourself first! You still have that big piece of wood in your own eye.

George Lamsa Translation
Or how can you say to your brother, let me take out the splinter from your eye, and behold there is a cross beam in your own eye?

Good News Translation
How dare you say to your brother, ‘Please, let me take that speck out of your eye,' when you have a log in your own eye?

Lexham English Bible
Or how will you say to your brother, ‘Allow me to remove the speck from your eye,' and behold, the beam of wood is in your own eye?

Literal Translation
Or how will you say to your brother, Allow me to cast out the twig from your eye; and behold, the log is in your eye!

American Standard Version
Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me cast out the mote out of thine eye; and lo, the beam is in thine own eye?

Bible in Basic English
Or how will you say to your brother, Let me take out the grain of dust from your eye, when you yourself have a bit of wood in your eye?

Hebrew Names Version
Or how will you tell your brother, 'Let me remove the speck from your eye;' and behold, the beam is in your own eye?

International Standard Version
Or how can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when the beam is in your own eye?

Etheridge Translation
Or how sayest thou to thy brother, Permit that I draw forth the rod from thine eye, and, behold, there is a rafter in thine own eye ?

Murdock Translation
Or how canst thou say to thy brother, Allow me to pluck the straw from thy eye; and lo! a beam is in thy own eye.

Bishop's Bible (1568)
Or, howe sayest thou to thy brother: suffer me, I wyll plucke out a mote out of thyne eye: and beholde, a beame is in thyne owne eye?

English Revised Version
Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me cast out the mote out of thine eye; and lo, the beam is in thine own eye?

World English Bible
Or how will you tell your brother, 'Let me remove the speck from your eye;' and behold, the beam is in your own eye?

Wesley's New Testament (1755)
Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote from thine eye, and behold a beam is in thine own eye?

Weymouth's New Testament
Or how say to your brother, `Allow me to take the splinter out of your eye,' while the beam is in your own eye?

Wycliffe Bible (1395)
Or hou seist thou to thi brothir, Brothir, suffre I schal do out a mote fro thin iye, and lo! a beem is in thin owne iye?

Update Bible Version
Or how will you say to your brother, Let me cast out the mote out of your eye; and look, the beam is in your own eye?

Webster's Bible Translation
Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thy eye; and behold, a beam [is] in thy own eye?

New English Translation
Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me remove the speck from your eye,' while there is a beam in your own?

New King James Version
Or how can you say to your brother, "Let me remove the speck from your eye'; and look, a plank is in your own eye?

New Living Translation
How can you think of saying to your friend, ‘Let me help you get rid of that speck in your eye,' when you can't see past the log in your own eye?

New Life Bible
How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take that small piece of wood out of your eye,' when there is a big piece of wood in your own eye?

New Revised Standard
Or how can you say to your neighbor, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,' while the log is in your own eye?

J.B. Rotherham Emphasized Bible
Or how wilt thou say unto thy brother, Let me cast the mote out of thine eye, - when 1o! a beam, is in thine own eye?

Douay-Rheims Bible
Or how sayest thou to thy brother: Let me cast the mote out of thy eye; and behold a beam is in thy own eye?

Revised Standard Version
Or how can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when there is the log in your own eye?

Tyndale New Testament (1525)
Or why sayest thou to thy brother: suffre me to plucke oute the moote oute of thyne eye and behold a beame is in thyne awne eye.

Young's Literal Translation
or, how wilt thou say to thy brother, Suffer I may cast out the mote from thine eye, and lo, the beam [is] in thine own eye?

Miles Coverdale Bible (1535)
Or why saiest thou to yi brother: holde, I wil plucke the moate out of thyne eye, and beholde, a beame is in thyne awne eye.

Mace New Testament (1729)
with what assurance can you say, brother, let me take that mote out of your eye; when there is such an apparent beam in your own eye?

Simplified Cowboy Version
How can you offer to help your friend out with his horse when you can't even put a saddle on yours?

Contextual Overview

¹"Don't pick on people, jump on their failures, criticize their faults— unless, of course, you want the same treatment. That critical spirit has a way of boomeranging. It's easy to see a smudge on your neighbor's face and be oblivious to the ugly sneer on your own. Do you have the nerve to say, ‘Let me wash your face for you,' when your own face is distorted by contempt? It's this whole traveling road-show mentality all over again, playing a holier-than-thou part instead of just living your part. Wipe that ugly sneer off your own face, and you might be fit to offer a washcloth to your neighbor. ⁶ "Don't be flip with the sacred. Banter and silliness give no honor to God. Don't reduce holy mysteries to slogans. In trying to be relevant, you're only being cute and inviting sacrilege.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

Reciprocal: Proverbs 26:7 - so Matthew 23:24 - General

Cross-References

Genesis 2:5
At the time God made Earth and Heaven, before any grasses or shrubs had sprouted from the ground— God hadn't yet sent rain on Earth, nor was there anyone around to work the ground (the whole Earth was watered by underground springs)— God formed Man out of dirt from the ground and blew into his nostrils the breath of life. The Man came alive—a living soul!

Genesis 6:3
Then God said, "I'm not going to breathe life into men and women endlessly. Eventually they're going to die; from now on they can expect a life span of 120 years."

Genesis 6:13
God said to Noah, "It's all over. It's the end of the human race. The violence is everywhere; I'm making a clean sweep.

Genesis 6:17
"I'm going to bring a flood on the Earth that will destroy everything alive under Heaven. Total destruction.

Genesis 7:11
It was the six-hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month that it happened: all the underground springs erupted and all the windows of Heaven were thrown open. Rain poured for forty days and forty nights.

Genesis 7:17
The flood continued forty days and the waters rose and lifted the ship high over the Earth. The waters kept rising, the flood deepened on the Earth, the ship floated on the surface. The flood got worse until all the highest mountains were covered—the high-water mark reached twenty feet above the crest of the mountains. Everything died. Anything that moved—dead. Birds, farm animals, wild animals, the entire teeming exuberance of life—dead. And all people—dead. Every living, breathing creature that lived on dry land died; he wiped out the whole works—people and animals, crawling creatures and flying birds, every last one of them, gone. Only Noah and his company on the ship lived.

Genesis 8:10
He waited seven more days and sent out the dove again. It came back in the evening with a freshly picked olive leaf in its beak. Noah knew that the flood was about finished.

Genesis 8:12
He waited another seven days and sent the dove out a third time. This time it didn't come back.

Psalms 69:28
Strike their names from the list of the living; No rock-carved honor for them among the righteous.

Amos 4:7
"Yes, and I'm the One who stopped the rains three months short of harvest. I'd make it rain on one village but not on another. I'd make it rain on one field but not on another—and that one would dry up. People would stagger from village to village crazed for water and never quenching their thirst. But you never got thirsty for me. You ignored me." God 's Decree.

Gill's Notes on the Bible

Or how wilt thou say to thy brother?.... This is not so much an interrogation, as an expression of admiration, at the front and impudence of such censorious remarkers, and rigid observators; who not content to point at the faults of others, take upon them to reprove them in a very magisterial way: and it is as if Christ had said, with what face canst thou say to thy friend or neighbour,

let me pull out the mote out of thine eye? give me leave to rebuke thee sharply for thy sin, as it deserves,

and behold a beam is in thine own eye; thou art guilty of a far greater iniquity: astonishing impudence! Art thou so blind, as not to see and observe thy viler wickedness? Or which, if conscious of, how canst thou prevail upon thyself to take upon thee to reprove and censure others? Dost thou think thy brother cannot see thy beam? And may he not justly retort thine iniquities upon thee, which exceed his? and then what success canst thou promise thyself? Such persons are very unfit to be reprovers of others.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse Matthew 7:4. Or how wilt thou say — That man is utterly unfit to show the way of life to others who is himself walking in the way of death.