Matthew 7:4

4 How can you say to your brother or sister, ‘Let me take the splinter out of your eye,' when there's a log in your eye?

Matthew 7:4 Meaning and Commentary

Matthew 7:4

Or how wilt thou say to thy brother?
&c.] This is not so much an interrogation, as an expression of admiration, at the front and impudence of such censorious remarkers, and rigid observators; who not content to point at the faults of others, take upon them to reprove them in a very magisterial way: and it is as if Christ had said, with what face canst thou say to thy friend or neighbour,

let me pull out the mote out of thine eye?
give me leave to rebuke thee sharply for thy sin, as it deserves,

and behold a beam is in thine own eye;
thou art guilty of a far greater iniquity: astonishing impudence! Art thou so blind, as not to see and observe thy viler wickedness? Or which, if conscious of, how canst thou prevail upon thyself to take upon thee to reprove and censure others? Dost thou think thy brother cannot see thy beam? And may he not justly retort thine iniquities upon thee, which exceed his? and then what success canst thou promise thyself? Such persons are very unfit to be reprovers of others.

Matthew 7:4 In-Context

2 You'll receive the same judgment you give. Whatever you deal out will be dealt out to you.

3 Why do you see the splinter that's in your brother's or sister's eye, but don't notice the log in your own eye?

4 How can you say to your brother or sister, ‘Let me take the splinter out of your eye,' when there's a log in your eye?

5 You deceive yourself! First take the log out of your eye, and then you'll see clearly to take the splinter out of your brother's or sister's eye.

6 Don't give holy things to dogs, and don't throw your pearls in front of pigs. They will stomp on the pearls, then turn around and attack you.