34 (A)Your eye is the lamp of your body; when your eye is [a]clear, your whole body also is full of light; but when it is [b]bad, your body also is full of darkness. 35 So watch out that the light in you is not darkness. 36 Therefore if your whole body is full of light, without any dark part, it will be wholly illuminated, as when the lamp illuminates you with its light.”

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Footnotes

  1. Luke 11:34 Or healthy
  2. Luke 11:34 Or evil

34 Your eye is the lamp of your body. When your eye is healthy,[a] your whole body is full of light, but when it is diseased,[b] your body is full of darkness. 35 Therefore see to it[c] that the light in you[d] is not darkness. 36 If[e] then[f] your whole body is full of light, with no part in the dark,[g] it will be as full of light as when the light of a lamp shines on you.”[h]

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Footnotes

  1. Luke 11:34 tn Or “sound” (so L&N 23.132 and most scholars). A few scholars take this word to mean something like “generous” here (L&N 57.107), partly due to the immediate context of this saying in Matt 6:22 which concerns money, in which case the “eye” is a metonymy for the entire person (“if you are generous”).
  2. Luke 11:34 tn Or “when it is sick” (L&N 23.149).sn There may be a slight wordplay here, as this term can also mean “evil,” so the figure uses a term that points to the real meaning of being careful as to what one pays attention to or looks at. Ancient understanding of vision involved light coming into the body from outside, and “light” thus easily becomes a metaphor for teaching. As a “diseased” eye would hinder the passage of light, so in the metaphor Jesus’ teaching would be blocked from being internalized in the hearer.
  3. Luke 11:35 tn This is a present imperative, calling for a constant watch (L&N 24.32; ExSyn 721).
  4. Luke 11:35 sn Here you is a singular pronoun, individualizing the application.
  5. Luke 11:36 tn This is a first class condition in the Greek text, so the example ends on a hopeful, positive note.
  6. Luke 11:36 tn Grk “Therefore”; the same conjunction as at the beginning of v. 35, but since it indicates a further inference or conclusion, it has been translated “then” here.
  7. Luke 11:36 tn Grk “not having any part dark.”
  8. Luke 11:36 tn Grk “it will be completely illumined as when a lamp illumines you with its rays.”

34 The light of the body is the eye: therefore when thine eye is single, thy whole body also is full of light; but when thine eye is evil, thy body also is full of darkness.

35 Take heed therefore that the light which is in thee be not darkness.

36 If thy whole body therefore be full of light, having no part dark, the whole shall be full of light, as when the bright shining of a candle doth give thee light.

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