Mat 5:43-45 | NETfull | STEP | “You have heard that it was said, ‘ Love your neighbor ’ and ‘hate your enemy.’

Matthew 5:43-45

Love for Enemies

43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘ Love your neighbor ’ ^{▼▼ A quotation from Lev 19:18.} and ‘hate your enemy.’ 44 But I say to you, love your enemy and ^{▼▼ Most mss ([D] L [W] Θ f¹³33 Maj. lat) read “bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who mistreat you,” before “those who persecute you.” But this is surely a motivated reading, importing the longer form of this aphorism from Luke 6:27–28. The shorter text is found in א B f¹ pc sa, as well as several fathers and versional witnesses.} pray for those who persecute you, 45 so that you may be like ^{▼▼ Grk “be sons of your Father in heaven.” Here, however, the focus is not on attaining a relationship (becoming a child of God) but rather on being the kind of person who shares the characteristics of God himself (a frequent meaning of the Semitic idiom “son of”). See L&N 58.26.} your Father in heaven, since he causes the sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.