Matthew 6:30

6:30 And if this is how God clothes the wild grass, ¹  which is here today and tomorrow is tossed into the fire to heat the oven, ²  won’t he clothe you even more, ³  you people of little faith?

Matthew 9:15

9:15 Jesus said to them, “The wedding guests ⁴  cannot mourn while the bridegroom ⁵  is with them, can they? But the days ⁶  are coming when the bridegroom will be taken from them, ⁷  and then they will fast.

Matthew 11:19

11:19 The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Look at him, ⁸  a glutton and a drunk, a friend of tax collectors ⁹  and sinners!’ ¹⁰  But wisdom is vindicated ¹¹  by her deeds.” ¹² 

Matthew 13:23

13:23 But as for the seed sown on good soil, this is the person who hears the word and understands. He bears fruit, yielding a hundred, sixty, or thirty times what was sown.” ¹³ 

Matthew 26:64

26:64 Jesus said to him, “You have said it yourself. But I tell you, from now on you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand ¹⁴  of the Power ¹⁵  and coming on the clouds of heaven.” ¹⁶ 

¹ tn Grk “grass of the field.”

² tn Grk “into the oven.” The expanded translation “into the fire to heat the oven” has been used to avoid misunderstanding; most items put into modern ovens are put there to be baked, not burned.

³ sn The phrase even more is a typical form of rabbinic argumentation, from the lesser to the greater. If God cares for the little things, surely he will care for the more important things.

⁴ tn Grk “sons of the wedding hall,” an idiom referring to wedding guests, or more specifically friends of the bridegroom present at the wedding celebration (L&N 11.7).

⁵ sn The expression while the bridegroom is with them is an allusion to messianic times (John 3:29; Isa 54:5-6; 62:4-5; 4 Ezra 2:15, 38).

⁶ tn Grk “days.”

⁷ sn The statement the bridegroom will be taken from them is a veiled allusion by Jesus to his death, which he did not make explicit until the incident at Caesarea Philippi in 16:13ff.

⁷ tn Grk “Behold a man.”

⁸ sn See the note on tax collectors in 5:46.

⁹ sn Neither were they happy with Jesus (the Son of Man), even though he was the opposite of John and associated freely with people like tax collectors and sinners. Either way, God’s messengers were subject to complaint.

¹⁰ tn Or “shown to be right.”

¹¹ tc Most witnesses (B² C D L Θ Ë¹ 33 Ï lat) have “children” (τέκνων, teknwn) here instead of “deeds” (ἔργων, ergwn), but since “children” is the reading of the parallel in Luke 7:35, scribes would be motivated to convert the less colorful “deeds” into more animate offspring of wisdom. Further, ἔργων enjoys support from א B* W (˹³) as well as early versional and patristic support.

¹⁰ tn The Greek is difficult to translate because it switches from a generic “he” to three people within this generic class (thus, something like: “Who indeed bears fruit and yields, in one instance a hundred times, in another, sixty times, in another, thirty times”).

¹³ sn An allusion to Ps 110:1. This is a claim that Jesus shares authority with God in heaven. Those present may have thought they were his judges, but, in fact, the reverse was true.

¹⁴ sn The expression the right hand of the Power is a circumlocution for referring to God. Such indirect references to God were common in 1st century Judaism out of reverence for the divine name.

¹⁵ sn An allusion to Dan 7:13 (see also Matt 24:30).