The critical text shortens this fourfold command to two parts: love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. The Textus Receptus also says to bless those who curse and do good to those who hate. Luke 6:27–28 contains all four actions in a related order.
“Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.” — Matthew 5:44
The shorter form has strong early support. Since Luke carries the fuller list, critics can explain Matthew’s received wording as a copyist’s attempt to make the two sermons agree.
Yet the phrases are not copied in a rigid block. Their order and wording differ, and Matthew’s list has a deliberate rise. Love names the governing duty. Bless turns hostile speech into prayerful speech. Do good makes love visible. Pray carries the enemy before the Father.
The omissions also occur in units with similar endings. A scribe can move from one “you” phrase to the next and leave a balanced member behind. Once a shorter form circulates, Luke’s agreement is easily recast as suspicion rather than corroboration.
Love with hands and a voice
The full command prevents love from becoming a private feeling. An enemy curses: bless. He hates: do good. He abuses and persecutes: pray. Christ does not command approval of evil or removal of lawful boundaries. He forbids personal hatred and retaliation.
Prayer for an enemy may ask God to stop his sin, bring him to repentance, protect the weak, and establish justice. Blessing is not calling evil good. It is refusing to use one’s mouth as a second weapon.
The Father sends sun and rain upon the unjust. His common gifts do not declare them righteous; they display goodness that his children must imitate. Publicans can love those who love them. The family likeness of heaven appears when love crosses the line of return.
The full text has broad and ancient support and gives practical content to the command that opens it. The resemblance to Luke is real because the teaching is the Lord’s. Matthew need not be shortened merely to make each Gospel sound less like the others.
The four verbs also answer four common limits on love. A person may claim inward goodwill while returning a curse, withholding needed help, or refusing to pray. Christ takes the claim apart. Love must govern speech, hand, and secret petition as well as emotion.
That does not require the same outward act in every case. Giving an abuser access to another victim is not doing good. A magistrate may punish, a church may discipline, and a household may establish distance. Enemy-love seeks the neighbor’s true good under God’s law, which includes restraint of evil and a sincere desire for repentance.
The fuller reading therefore deepens rather than sentimentalizes the command. It gives no room for revenge, and it gives no room for calling indulgence mercy. The Father’s perfection in verse 48 is whole-hearted goodness joined to truth. His children show it when hostile treatment cannot recruit them into the enemy’s likeness.
Further reading
- Exodus 23:4–5; Matthew 5:43–48; Luke 6:27–36; Romans 12:14–21.
- Bruce M. Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, note on Matthew 5:44.
- John William Burgon, The Revision Revised.