1 “Don’t condemn+ others, so that ᵖyou won’t be condemned. 2 For how will ᵖyou be judged? According to the very same standard you use with others.+ And what amount of mercy or condemnation will be dealt out to you? Precisely the amount ᵖyou deal out to others.+ 3 Why do ˢyou gawk+ at the speck in the eye of your brother or sister, but give no consideration+ to that beam of timber in your own eye? 4 Or how in the world can ˢyou say to your brother or sister, ‘Let me remove the speck from your eye,’ when there is that beam in your own eye? 5 You hypocrite! First remove the beam from your own eye; only then will you see clearly enough to remove the speck from the eye of your brother or sister.+ 6 Yet don’t give what is holy to dogs or toss ᵖyour pearls before pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet and then turn around and attack ᵖyou.+

7 Keep asking, and your request will be granted to ᵖyou. Keep seeking, and ᵖyou will find. Keep knocking, and the door will be opened to ᵖyou.+ 8 It is the person who asks persistently, you see, who receives. And who is it that finds? The one who continues to seek.+ And to whom will the door be opened? To the one who knocks again and again. 9 Any person among you, if his son+ were to ask him for some bread, surely he wouldn’t give him a stone, would he? 10 Or if his son+ asks him, too, for a fish, he isn’t going to give the boy+ a snake, is he? Of course not! 11 If ᵖyou, therefore, even though you are so wicked, know how to give your children such good gifts, how much more surely will your Father in the heavens himself give good things to those who keep asking him!+

12 “So, in light of all these teachings:

“In everything, the way ᵖyou would want others to treat you, this is precisely how you, too, are to treat them. This, you see, is the essence+ of the Torah and the Prophets.

13 “Enter through the narrow gate, for wide is the gate and broad the road that leads to utter ruin, and those who enter through it are many. 14 But how narrow is the gate and filled with suffering the road that leads to life, and those who find it are few.+

15 “Watch out for false prophets, who come to ᵖyou in sheep’s clothing, but on the inside are actually ravenous wolves.+ 16 Here is how ᵖyou will recognize them: By their fruits. Grapes aren’t gathered from thornbushes or figs from plants with thorns, are they? No. 17 In the same way, every good tree produces good fruit, while a tree that is diseased produces bad fruit. 18 A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree produce good fruit. 19 Every tree that does not produce good fruit is cut down and thrown where? Into the fire.+ 20 So then, it is by their fruits that ᵖyou will recognize them.+

21 “Not just anyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the person who does the will of my Father in the heavens. 22 Many people will say to me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, it was in your name that we prophesied, wasn’t it? And it was in your name that we drove out demons, was it not? And yours was the name in which we did many miracles, was it not?’+ 23 And at that time I will publicly declare to them, ‘I never knew ᵖyou. Away from me, you evildoers!’+

24 “Given these things, if anyone hears these teachings+ of mine and obeys them, he may be compared to a wise man, who built his house on bedrock. 25 The rain fell and the floodwaters came and the winds blew and beat against that house, yet it did not fall, because it had been founded on bedrock.+ 26 But if someone hears these teachings of mine and does not obey them, he may be compared to a foolish man, who built his house on sand. 27 The rain fell and the floodwaters came and the winds blew and struck that house, and it fell. And its fall was great.”

28 When Jesus finished saying these things, the crowds were astonished at his teaching. 29 He was teaching them, you see, like someone with authority—quite unlike their Torah-experts.