Passage

Matthew 6.33

Book: Matthew · ASV / WEB / KJV / YLT

Immediate context (±2 verses)

ASV

31. Be not therefore anxious, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? 32. For after all these things do the Gentiles seek; for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.

33. But seek ye first his kingdom, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.

Be not therefore anxious for the morrow: for the morrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. (Matthew 6:31-34, ASV)

WEB

31. “Therefore don’t be anxious, saying, ‘What will we eat?’, ‘What will we drink?’ or, ‘With what will we be clothed?’ 32. For the Gentiles seek after all these things; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.

33. But seek first God’s Kingdom, and his righteousness; and all these things will be given to you as well.

Therefore don’t be anxious for tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Each day’s own evil is sufficient. (Matthew 6:31-34, WEB)

KJV

31. Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? 32. (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.

33. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.

Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. (Matthew 6:31-34, KJV)

YLT

31. therefore ye may not be anxious, saying, What may we eat? or, What may we drink? or, What may we put round? 32. for all these do the nations seek for, for your heavenly Father doth know that ye have need of all these;

33. but seek ye first the reign of God and His righteousness, and all these shall be added to you.

Be not therefore anxious for the morrow, for the morrow shall be anxious for its own things; sufficient for the day [is] the evil of it. (Matthew 6:31-34, YLT)

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Setting

Speaker: Jesus
Audience: the disciples, with the crowds listening, in the Sermon on the Mount
Location: a mountainside in Galilee
Time period: c. AD 28-30

Theological reading

Seek ye first his kingdom, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.

The verse is the conclusion of an argument, not a standalone promise, and the argument runs from verse 25. Jesus has been addressing anxiety about food, drink and clothing, and his reasoning is comparative throughout: birds are fed though they do not sow, lilies are clothed better than Solomon though they do not toil, and your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things (v. 32). The command to seek first rests on that established fatherhood. Remove verse 32 and verse 33 becomes a transaction; keep it and the verse is an inference from a relationship already in place.

These things is therefore precisely defined by the context, and it is a short list: food, drink, clothing. The passage is not a general guarantee of prosperity, and reading it as one requires ignoring the terms Jesus himself set two verses earlier. The prosperity-gospel use of the verse is a category error rather than merely an exaggeration.

First translates proton, which in this construction carries priority rather than sequence. The instruction is not to attend to the kingdom before turning to other business but to make it the ordering principle under which other business is done. Verse 24 has already established why: no one can serve two masters, and the alternative to God is named as mammon.

The pairing his kingdom and his righteousness keeps the sentence from collapsing into either activism or piety alone. The kingdom is God's reign breaking in; his righteousness is the character of life under it, which the preceding five chapters have described in detail. Verse 34 then adds the limit that makes the command livable: sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.

Key words

Theologically-loaded Greek or Hebrew words in this verse may have entries in the lexicon. Curated to roughly 100 contested terms across the corpus, not every word; see Lexicon Roadmap.

G1343 - dikaiosyne, dikaiosyne, Strong's G1343
G3956 - pas, pas, Strong's G3956
G2316 - theos, theos, Strong's G2316

Quoted in

Concepts:

Lexicon:

Why these four translations

ris3n chose ASV, WEB, KJV, and YLT for two reasons together. They are the most literal English translations available (formal-equivalence: word-for-word renderings that preserve the Hebrew and Greek grammar rather than smoothing it into modern dynamic-equivalence idiom). And they are in the public domain in the United States, which means fair-use quotation at any length requires no publisher license. Modern licensed translations (NASB95, ESV, NIV) restrict volume of quotation under their copyright terms, so they are not used at stub-level coverage here. NASB95 appears only on hand-curated rich passage hubs under Lockman Foundation's fair-use allowance.

The four:

ASV (American Standard Version, 1901). The basis of the modern critical-text English tradition.
WEB (World English Bible, contemporary). Public-domain revision in the ASV line, in current English.
KJV (King James Version, 1611). Reformation-era, Textus Receptus base.
YLT (Young's Literal Translation, Robert Young, 1862). Hyper-literal preservation of Hebrew and Greek grammar; useful for word-study work even where English reads stiff.

See Bibles for the full per-translation history, translators, textual basis, strengths, and weaknesses.