Matthew Chapter 7 verse 12 Holy Bible

ASV Matthew 7:12

All things therefore whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, even so do ye also unto them: for this is the law and the prophets.
read chapter 7 in ASV

BBE Matthew 7:12

All those things, then, which you would have men do to you, even so do you to them: because this is the law and the prophets.
read chapter 7 in BBE

DARBY Matthew 7:12

Therefore all things whatever ye desire that men should do to you, thus do *ye* also do to them; for this is the law and the prophets.
read chapter 7 in DARBY

KJV Matthew 7:12

Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets.
read chapter 7 in KJV

WBT Matthew 7:12


read chapter 7 in WBT

WEB Matthew 7:12

Therefore whatever you desire for men to do to you, you shall also do to them; for this is the law and the prophets.
read chapter 7 in WEB

YLT Matthew 7:12

`All things, therefore, whatever ye may will that men may be doing to you, so also do to them, for this is the law and the prophets.
read chapter 7 in YLT

Matthew 7 : 12 Bible Verse Songs

Pulpit Commentary

Pulpit CommentaryVerse 12. - Ver. 12a, parallel passage: Luke 6:31; Luke 12b, Matthew only. All things therefore. Therefore. Summing up the lesson of vers. 1-11 (cf. ver. 7, note). In consequence of all that I have said about censoriousness and the means of overcoming it, let the very opposite feeling rule your conduct towards others. Let all (emphatic) your dealings with men be conducted in the same spirit in which you would desire them to deal with you. Even so. Not "these things" do ye to them; for our Lord carefully avoids any expression that might lead to a legal enumeration of different details, but "thus" (οὕτως), referring to the character of your own wishes. (For this "golden rule," cf. Tobit 4:15 (negative form); cf. also patristic references in Resch, 'Agrapha,' pp. 95, 135.) On the occasional similarity of pre-Christian writings to the teaching of our Lord, Augustine (vide Trench, 'Serm.,' in loc.) well says it is "the glory of the written and spoken law, that it is the transcript of that which was from the first, and not merely as old as this man or that, but as the Creation itself, a reproduction of that obscured and forgotten law written at the beginning by the finger of God on the hearts of all men. When, therefore, heathen sages or poets proclaimed any part of this, they had not thereby anticipated Christ; they had only deciphered some fragment of that law, which he gave from the first, and which, when men, exiles and fugitives from themselves and from the knowledge of their own hearts, had lost the power of reading, he came in the flesh to read to them anew, and to bring out the well-nigh obliterated characters afresh." (Compare also Bishop Lightfoot's essay on "St. Paul and Seneca," in his 'Philippians.') For this is the law and the prophets. For this. This principle of action and mode of life is, in fact, the sum of all Bible teaching (cf. Leviticus 19:18). Observe: (1) Our Lord brings out the same thought, but with its necessary limitation to the second table, in Matthew 22:40 (cf. Romans 13:10). (2) Our Lord thus returns to the main subject of his sermon, the relation in which he and his must stand to the Law (Matthew 5:17).

Ellicott's Commentary

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(12) Therefore . . . whatsoever.--The sequence of thought requires, perhaps, some explanation. God gives His good things in answer to our wishes, if only what we wish for is really for our good. It is man's highest blessedness to be like God, to "be perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect," and therefore in this respect too he must strive to resemble Him. The ground thus taken gives a new character to that which otherwise had already become almost one of the "common-places" of Jewish and heathen ethics. Perhaps the most interesting illustration of the former is the well-known story of the Gentile inquirer who went to Shammai, the great scribe, and asked to be taught the law, in a few brief words, while he stood on one foot. The Rabbi turned away in anger. The questioner then went to Hillel, and made the same demand; and the sage turned and said, "Whatsoever thou wouldest that men should not do to thee, that do not thou to them. All our law is summed up in that." And so the Gentile became a proselyte. A like negative rule is quoted by Gibbon (Decl. and Fall, c. liv., note 2) from Isocrates, not without a sneer, as if it anticipated the teaching of the Christ. The nearest approach to our Lord's rule is, however, found in the saying ascribed to Aristotle, who, when asked how we should act towards our friends, replied, "As we would they should act to us" (Diog. Laert., v. 1, ? 21). All these, however, though we may welcome them as instances of the testimonium animae naturaliter Christianae (as Tertullian calls it), are yet wanting in the completeness of our Lord's precept, and still more do they fall below it in regard of the ground on which the precept rests, and the power given to perform it. Yet even here, too, there is, of necessity, an implied limitation. We cannot comply with all men's desires, nor ought we to wish that they should comply with ours, for those desires may be foolish and frivolous, or may involve the indulgence of lust or passion. The rule is only safe when our own will has been first purified, so that we wish only from others that which is really good. Reciprocity in evil or in folly is obviously altogether alien from the mind of Christ.