The Sermon on the Mount — Matthew 5–7

Where it sits

The Sermon on the Mount opens at Matthew 5:1 and closes at Matthew 7:29. It is one of five major teaching blocks in Matthew’s Gospel — the others being the missionary discourse (Matt 10), the parables of the kingdom (Matt 13), the community discourse (Matt 18), and the eschatological discourse (Matt 24–25). Matthew is structured around these blocks; the gospel writer presents them as the major teaching units of Jesus’s ministry.

The Sermon is delivered “on the mountain” (Greek: eis to oros) — verse 5:1 — to crowds who have followed Jesus from across Galilee, Judea, the Decapolis, and beyond the Jordan (4:25). The disciples are also present.

A parallel sermon appears in Luke 6:20–49 (often called the Sermon on the Plain), which contains many of the same sayings in a shorter form and a different setting. Some sayings in Matthew 5–7 have parallels scattered across other locations in Luke. Whether the Matthean and Lukan accounts are records of two different sermons, two presentations of one sermon, or compositional arrangements by each evangelist of common Jesus-tradition is a long-standing question in Synoptic Gospel scholarship.

The structure

Matthew 5–7 has a recognisable argument structure:

The structure moves from the inner disposition (Beatitudes), through ethical teaching (antitheses, practices), to ethical discernment (judging, asking, fruit-bearing), to the closing summons to a way of life (the two foundations).

The famous phrases in their settings

Almost every phrase from the Sermon that has entered English as a standalone saying takes on a different shape in its actual context. A few examples:

• “Turn the other cheek” (5:39) — appears within the antitheses, paired with “if anyone wants to sue you and take your tunic, hand over your cloak as well” and “if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles.” The famous phrase is one of three escalating responses to specific Roman-era forms of harassment, not a general principle of pacifism in the abstract.
• “Love your enemies” (5:44) — concludes the same antithesis section. It is paired with “pray for those who persecute you” and grounded in the observation that God “causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good.” The teaching is about how the disciples’ love is to extend beyond reciprocal relations.
• “Judge not” (7:1) — opens a five-verse unit (7:1–5) including the speck-and-log analogy. The full unit explicitly limits its prohibition: “first take the beam out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.” See our entries on judge not in full context and the related /confused/ entry.
• “Ask, and it will be given” (7:7) — opens a five-verse unit ending with the human/divine fatherhood comparison and the Golden Rule. See our individual entry on ask and you shall receive.
• “Do unto others” (7:12) — the Golden Rule. Verse 12 specifies its scope: “for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.”

Two textual notes worth knowing

The Lord’s Prayer (6:9–13). The KJV ends the prayer with the doxology “For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.” This doxology does not appear in the earliest manuscripts of Matthew (including Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus) and is omitted from modern critical editions (NA28). It first appears in some later manuscripts and in the Didache (an early Christian text from c. 100 AD). Whether the doxology was original to the prayer or a later liturgical addition is a long-standing textual question. Modern translations either omit the doxology, footnote it, or include it with a note.

“Lead us not into temptation” (6:13). The Greek καὶ μὴ εἰσενέγκῃς ἡμᾶς εἰς πειρασμόν has been variously rendered. Pope Francis approved a revised Italian translation in 2017 that softens the rendering (“do not let us enter into temptation”), arguing that the older rendering implies God actively leads people into temptation. The Greek itself permits both readings; the standard scholarly Greek lexicon (BDAG) documents peirasmos as covering both “trial” and “temptation.”

What this site does not do

The Sermon on the Mount has been the subject of more interpretive literature than almost any other biblical text. We do not summarize that literature, and we do not endorse any of its major schools (the “interim ethic” reading of Albert Schweitzer, the “Lutheran two-uses-of-the-law” reading, the “kingdom inaugurated” reading, the “ethics of grace” reading, etc.). We document the structure and contents, name the major textual questions, and let readers consult the primary literature if they want to engage the interpretive history.