Who can say, “I have cleansed my heart, I am pure from my sin”?
Parallel translations
- WEB Who can say, “I have made my heart pure. I am clean and without sin?”
- KJV Who can say, I have made my heart clean, I am pure from my sin?
- BSB Who can say, “I have kept my heart pure; I am cleansed from my sin”?
- NKJV Who can say, “I have made my heart clean, I am pure from my sin”?
- NLT Who can say, “I have cleansed my heart; I am pure and free from sin”?
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
No one can honestly claim to have cleansed his own heart and be free of sin. It matters because it exposes universal human sinfulness and our need for cleansing from God.
Overview
This rhetorical question expects the answer 'no one' — every human heart is stained by sin and cannot purify itself (1 Kings 8:46; Ecclesiastes 7:20). The verse undercuts any self-righteousness and points to our need for grace. The gospel answers it: only the blood of Christ cleanses the conscience and makes the heart pure (1 John 1:7-9; Hebrews 9:14).
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 10
- Eccl 7:20Surely there is not a righteous man on earth, who does good and doesn’t sin.
- 1 Jn 1:8–10If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
- 1 Kgs 8:46If they sin against you (for there is no man who doesn’t sin), and you are angry with them, and deliver them to the enemy, so that they carry them away captive to the land of the enemy, far off or near;
- Job 14:4Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? Not one.
- Job 15:14What is man, that he should be clean? What is he who is born of a woman, that he should be righteous?
- Job 25:4How then can man be just with God? Or how can he who is born of a woman be clean?
- 1 Cor 4:4For I know nothing against myself. Yet I am not justified by this, but he who judges me is the Lord.
- Jas 3:2For in many things we all stumble. If anyone doesn’t stumble in word, the same is a perfect man, able to bridle the whole body also.
- 2 Chr 6:36“If they sin against you (for there is no man who doesn’t sin), and you are angry with them, and deliver them to the enemy, so that they carry them away captive to a land far off or near;
- Ps 51:5Behold, I was born in iniquity. In sin my mother conceived me.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.
Christ at the center
Wisdom personified, with God before creation and the agent of all things, anticipates Christ 'in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom' — the wisdom of God made flesh.
How Proverbs 20:9 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 Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.