Luke 6:20-26
New Catholic Bible
The Sermon on the Plain[a]
20 The Beatitudes.[b] Then, turning to his disciples, he began to speak:
“Blessed are you who are poor,
for the kingdom of God is yours.
21 Blessed are you who hunger now,
for you will have your fill.
Blessed are you who weep now,
for you will laugh.
22 “Blessed are you when people hate you and ostracize you, when they insult you and denounce your name as evil on account of the Son of Man. 23 Rejoice on that day and dance for joy, for your reward will be great in heaven. This was the way their ancestors treated the Prophets.
24 “But woe to you who are rich,
for you have received your consolation.
25 Woe to you who are well fed now,
for you will go hungry.
Woe to you who laugh now,
for you will mourn and weep.
26 Woe to you when all speak well of you,
for their ancestors treated the false prophets in the same fashion.
Footnotes
- Luke 6:20 The remainder of ch. 6 corresponds to the “Sermon on the Mount,” which the Gospel of Matthew places at the beginning of Jesus’ activity (Mt 5–7). Luke offers a more concise and less solemn text. His readers have little knowledge of Jewish life; it was therefore pointless to contrast the old Law with the demands of the Gospel. The latter are stated in a more absolute manner. Matthew describes the interior attitude, the disposition of heart, without which no one can enter the kingdom of God. Luke prefers to evoke a more concrete and living tone. He underlines with special insistence the deportment in regard to riches; this is the test of entrance into the kingdom.
- Luke 6:20 The Beatitudes of the Gospel of Matthew bring forth an unexpected message (Mt 5:3-12). The short sentences in which Luke opposes the blessedness and woe of people reach us in an even more powerful manner. The Old Testament loved such contrasting formulas, but here the reader is directly challenged: “you.” In announcing the kingdom Jesus overturns the system of values on which we base our lives, relations, judgments, and actions. He denounces as false our more recurrent ideas. More than once, Luke underlines God’s predilection for the most deprived, who do not let themselves be deceived by pretension or by riches. Here we touch upon an essential point of a Christian conception of existence.
