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for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
Matthew 6:21 · World English Bible
Parallel translations
  • KJV For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
  • BSB For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
  • NKJV For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
  • NASB for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
  • NLT Wherever your treasure is, there the desires of your heart will also be.

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

Your heart follows wherever your treasure is. What you value most reveals and shapes your deepest loyalties.

Overview

This pithy saying explains the previous commands: our affections, priorities, and devotion inevitably attach to whatever we treasure. To store treasure in heaven is to fix the heart on God and his kingdom; to store it on earth is to be enslaved to perishing things. The verse calls for honest self-examination about what truly captures our love.

Cross-references & the web

Cross-references · 13

  • Col 3:1–3If then you were raised together with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated on the right hand of God.
  • Luke 12:34For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
  • 2 Cor 4:18while we don’t look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.
  • Prov 4:23Keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it is the wellspring of life.
  • Isa 33:6There will be stability in your times, abundance of salvation, wisdom, and knowledge. The fear of Yahweh is your treasure.
  • Heb 3:12Beware, brothers, lest perhaps there be in any one of you an evil heart of unbelief, in falling away from the living God;
  • Jer 4:14Jerusalem, wash your heart from wickedness, that you may be saved. How long shall your evil thoughts lodge within you?
  • Matt 12:34You offspring of vipers, how can you, being evil, speak good things? For out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.
  • Acts 8:21You have neither part nor lot in this matter, for your heart isn’t right before God.
  • Rom 7:5–7For when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions which were through the law, worked in our members to bring out fruit to death.
  • Jer 22:17But your eyes and your heart are not but for your covetousness, and for shedding innocent blood, for oppression, and for doing violence.”
  • Phlm 1:3Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
  • Phlm 1:19I, Paul, write this with my own hand: I will repay it (not to mention to you that you owe to me even your own self besides).

Themes, concepts, people & topics

Topics (5)

Resources, by level

Commentaries & study tools

  • VideoBibleProject — Matthew videosBibleProject · Lay · Free · evangelical

    Free animated overview and word-study videos for this book.

  • VideoWatch teaching on Matthew 6:21YouTube · Lay · Free

    Sermons and teaching on this passage from across YouTube.

  • CommentaryEnduring Word — verse-by-verseDavid Guzik · Lay · Free · evangelical

    Clear, readable, conservative exposition — the best free place to start on any passage.

  • CommentaryClassic commentaries for this verseBibleHub (20+ works) · Pastoral · Free

    Matthew Henry, Barnes, Gill, the Pulpit Commentary, Ellicott, Cambridge, and more — stacked on one page for this exact verse.

  • CommentaryMatthew Henry on MatthewMatthew Henry · Pastoral · Free · evangelical

    The beloved Puritan exposition of this whole book — warm, devotional, and verse by verse (free, CCEL).

  • ReferenceInterlinear, lexicon & Strong'sBlue Letter Bible · Seminary · Free

    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 6:21 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.