Luke 6:39-49

New Testament for Everyone

Judging others and true obedience

³⁹ Jesus told them this riddle. “What do you get when one blind man guides another? Both of them falling in a ditch! ⁴⁰ Students can’t do better than the teacher; when the course is done, they’ll all be just like the teacher.

⁴¹ “Why look at the speck of dust in your brother’s eye, when you haven’t noticed the plank in your own eye? ⁴² How can you say to your brother, ‘Dear brother, let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when you can’t see the plank in your own? You’re a fraud! First take the plank out of your own eye, and then you’ll see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.

⁴³ “You see, no good tree bears bad fruit; nor can a bad tree produce good fruit. ⁴⁴ Every tree is known by its fruit. You don’t pick figs from thorns; nor do you get grapes from a briar-bush. ⁴⁵ The good person brings good things out of the good treasure of the heart; the evil person brings evil things out of evil. What comes out of the mouth is what’s overflowing in the heart.

⁴⁶ “Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and don’t do what I say? ⁴⁷ I’ll show you what people are like when they come to me, and hear my words, and do them. ⁴⁸ They are like a wise man building a house: he dug, he went down deep, and he laid a foundation on rock. When a flood came, the river burst its banks all over the house, but it couldn’t shake it because it was well built. ⁴⁹ But when people hear but don’t obey—that’s like a man who built a house on the ground, without a foundation. When the river burst over it, it fell down at once. The ruin of that house was devastating.”