Matthew 7:4

4 or, how wilt thou say to thy brother, Suffer I may cast out the mote from thine eye, and lo, the beam [is] in thine own 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 for in what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged, and in what measure ye measure, it shall be measured to you.

3 `And why dost thou behold the mote that [is] in thy brother's eye, and the beam that [is] in thine own eye dost not consider?

4 or, how wilt thou say to thy brother, Suffer I may cast out the mote from thine eye, and lo, the beam [is] in thine own eye?

5 Hypocrite, cast out first the beam out of thine own eye, and then thou shalt see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye.

6 `Ye may not give that which is [holy] to the dogs, nor cast your pearls before the swine, that they may not trample them among their feet, and having turned -- may rend you.