Teaching on Judging, Asking, and Two Roads

Don’t judge, so you won’t be judged. ² For the judgment you use will be used on you, and the measure you measure with will be measured back to you.

³ Why do you stare at the speck in your brother’s eye but pay no attention to the log in your own eye? ⁴ How can you say to your brother, “Let me take that speck out of your eye” — when there’s a log sitting in your own eye? ⁵ You hypocrite. First take the log out of your own eye, and then you’ll see clearly enough to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.

⁶ Don’t give what is holy to the dogs, and don’t throw your pearls in front of pigs. They’ll just trample them underfoot and then turn and tear you to pieces.^[1]

⁷ Ask, and it will be given to you. Seek, and you will find. Knock, and the door will be opened to you. ⁸ For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.

⁹ Is there any man among you who, if his son asks for bread, will hand him a stone? ¹⁰ Or if he asks for a fish, will hand him a snake? ¹¹ So if you, as bad as you are, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in the heavens give good things to those who ask him.

¹² So in everything, whatever you want people to do to you, do the same to them — for this is the Law and the Prophets.^[2]

¹³ Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many are those who go in through it. ¹⁴ But narrow is the gate and hard is the road that leads to life, and few are those who find it.

¹⁵ Watch out for false prophets. They come to you dressed in sheep’s clothing, but inside they are ravenous wolves. ¹⁶ You will recognize them by their fruit. Do people gather grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? ¹⁷ In the same way, every good tree produces good fruit, but a rotten tree produces bad fruit. ¹⁸ A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, nor can a rotten tree produce good fruit. ¹⁹ Every tree that doesn’t produce good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. ²⁰ So then, you will recognize them by their fruit.

²¹ Not everyone who says to me, “Lord, Lord,” will enter the kingdom of the heavens — only the one who does the will of my Father in the heavens. ²² Many will say to me on that day, “Lord, Lord, didn’t we prophesy in your name, and drive out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?”^{[3] 23} And then I will declare to them, “I never knew you. Get away from me, you who practice lawlessness.”

²⁴ So everyone who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. ²⁵ The rain came down, the rivers rose, the winds blew and beat against that house — and it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. ²⁶ And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. ²⁷ The rain came down, the rivers rose, the winds blew and slammed against that house — and it fell. And its fall was great.

²⁸ And it happened, when Jesus finished these words, the crowds were astonished at his teaching, ²⁹ for he was teaching them as one who had authority, and not as their scribes.^[4]