You blind guides, who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel!
Parallel translations
- WEB You blind guides, who strain out a gnat, and swallow a camel!
- KJV Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel.
- BSB You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.
- NKJV Blind guides, who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel!
- NLT Blind guides! You strain your water so you won’t accidentally swallow a gnat, but you swallow a camel!
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
They strain out a gnat but swallow a camel, a vivid image of fussing over trifles while ignoring gross sin. It mocks misplaced priorities in religion.
Overview
Using deliberate hyperbole, Jesus pictures the leaders filtering out the smallest unclean insect while gulping down the largest unclean animal. Their religion obsessed over minutiae while overlooking enormous moral failures. The image warns against any piety that fixates on small matters and neglects the great commands to love God and neighbor.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 8
- Matt 19:24Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through a needle’s eye, than for a rich man to enter into God’s Kingdom.”
- Matt 27:6–8The chief priests took the pieces of silver, and said, “It’s not lawful to put them into the treasury, since it is the price of blood.”
- Matt 15:2–6“Why do your disciples disobey the tradition of the elders? For they don’t wash their hands when they eat bread.”
- Luke 6:7–10The scribes and the Pharisees watched him, to see whether he would heal on the Sabbath, that they might find an accusation against him.
- John 18:28They led Jesus therefore from Caiaphas into the Praetorium. It was early, and they themselves didn’t enter into the Praetorium, that they might not be defiled, but might eat the Passover.
- Matt 23:16“Woe to you, you blind guides, who say, ‘Whoever swears by the temple, it is nothing; but whoever swears by the gold of the temple, he is obligated.’
- John 18:40Then they all shouted again, saying, “Not this man, but Barabbas!” Now Barabbas was a robber.
- Matt 7:4Or how will you tell your brother, ‘Let me remove the speck from your eye;’ and behold, the beam is in your own eye?
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Commentaries & study tools
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Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.
Christ at the center
Matthew presents Jesus as the promised King — son of David, son of Abraham — the new Moses and true Israel in whom every prophecy reaches 'that it might be fulfilled.'
How Matthew 23:24 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Greek word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.