Some Greek manuscripts begin chapter 6 with the conjunction “But,” which some scholars interpret as a scribal attempt to balance the preceding demand for absolute righteousness with the warnings that accompany the discussion of that righteousness. In any case, the use of the conjunction in translation will depend entirely upon the requirements of the receptor language.
The chapter is a continuation of the discourse begun in chapter 5, so it may not need any particular transition or introduction. But there are translators who have found it useful to say something like “Jesus continued by saying” or “Jesus continued to speak to the crowds.”
Beware of (so also Phillips) represents the translation of an imperative (Good News Translation “Make certain”) plus a negative (“not”). English translations represent the verb in a variety of ways: “Be careful” (New English Bible, New Jerusalem Bible, New International Version), “Take care” (Barclay, An American Translation, Moffatt), and “Be on guard” (New American Bible). Elsewhere in Matthew this verb is used in 7.15; 10.17; 16.6, 11, 12. This imperative may be expressed as “Be sure that you don’t,” “Don’t ever,” or “You must never.”
Piety (Good News Translation “religious duties”) translates the noun earlier rendered “righteousness”; see 3.15; 5.6, 10, 20. Here it serves as a summary term for almsgiving, prayer, and fasting, which were for Judaism the three most important expressions of one’s religious duties. Accordingly, Traduction œcuménique de la Bible translates “practice of your religion.” New English Bible translates the first sentence “Be careful not to make a show of your religion before men”; New American Bible has “Be on guard against performing religious acts for people to see.” Other translations tend to utilize more general terms for the noun: “good deeds” (An American Translation, Phillips, Jerusalem Bible), “righteous deeds” (Anchor Bible), and “acts of righteousness” (New International Version). In the Greek manuscript followed by King James Version, the word “alms” appears in place of “righteousness”; however, this wording is so poorly attested that it does not even appear as an alternative possibility in the UBS Greek text. Moreover, this would make “alms” in verse 2 almost redundant.
Practicing your piety has proved quite difficult for many translators, primarily because many languages do not have a convenient word for “religion” or “religious.” A common way to handle “religion” has been “way of worshiping God,” so that practicing your piety can be expressed as “doing the things you must as part of your worshiping God” or “doing the things that you have to do because your way of worshiping God requires them.”
Before men in order to be seen by them is presented somewhat more dynamically by Good News Translation: “in public so that people will see what you do.” Bible en français courant has “for all the world to notice you”; and Bibel im heutigen Deutsch, 1st edition reads “to be admired by people.” Other ways to say it are “in front of people so they can see that you do these things” or “in front of people so they will notice what you are doing.” The first part of this sentence can be “Don’t make a public show of doing the things you must because of your way of worshiping God” or “It is wrong to perform the things that are a part of your worship of God in public just so people can see you.”
For then (New English Bible “If you do”) translates a series of four Greek particles, which Good News Translation fills out as “If you do these things publicly.” Translations employ a wide variety of literary devices, all of them designed to relate the second half of the verse to the first half.
Reward was first used in 5.12. Elsewhere in Matthew’s Gospel it is found in 5.46; 6.2, 5, 16; 10.41, 42; 20.8.
Father who is in heaven: see comments on 5.16.
Ways of expressing the last part of the verse include “If you do that, God your Father in heaven will have no great gift to give you,” “If you do, God your heavenly Father will not give you any reward (or, valuable gift),” and “Because then you will be unable to receive a great gift from God your heavenly Father.”
Quoted with permission from Newman, Barclay M. and Stine, Philip C. A Handbook on the Gospel of Matthew. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1988. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .