Matthew 5:24

Translations

King James Version (KJV)

Leave there your gift before the altar, and go your way; first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.

American King James Version (AKJV)

Leave there your gift before the altar, and go your way; first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.

American Standard Version (ASV)

leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way, first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift.

Basic English Translation (BBE)

While your offering is still before the altar, first go and make peace with your brother, then come and make your offering.

Webster's Revision

Leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift.

World English Bible

leave your gift there before the altar, and go your way. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.

English Revised Version (ERV)

leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way, first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift.

Clarke's Matthew 5:24 Bible Commentary

Leave there thy gift before the altar - This is as much as to say, "Do not attempt to bring any offering to God while thou art in a spirit of enmity against any person; or hast any difference with thy neighbor, which thou hast not used thy diligence to get adjusted." It is our duty and interest, both to bring our gift, and offer it too; but God will not accept of any act of religious worship from us, while any enmity subsists in our hearts towards any soul of man; or while any subsists in our neighbor's heart towards us, which we have not used the proper means to remove. A religion, the very essence of which is love, cannot suffer at its altars a heart that is revengeful and uncharitable, or which does not use its utmost endeavors to revive love in the heart of another. The original word, δωρον, which we translate gift, is used by the rabbins in Hebrew letters דורון doron, which signifies not only a gift, but a sacrifice offered to God. See several proofs in Schoettgen.

Then come and offer thy gift - Then, when either thy brother is reconciled to thee, or thou hast done all in thy power to effect this reconciliation. My own obstinacy and uncharitableness must render me utterly unfit to receive any good from God's hands, or to worship him in an acceptable manner; bat the wickedness of another can be no hinderance to me, when I have endeavored earnestly to get it removed, though without effect.

Wesley's Matthew 5:24 Bible Commentary

5:24 Leaving thy gift, go - For neither thy gift nor thy prayer will atone for thy want of love: but this will make them both an abomination before God.