Truly, I say to you (Good News Translation “I assure you”): see comment at 5.18.

For prophets, see comments on 1.22.

Righteous men is the plural masculine form of the adjective first used in 1.19, where it was translated “just” (see also 5.45). Good News Translation translates “God’s people,” Jerusalem Bible “holy men,” New English Bible “saints,” Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch “devout people,” and Barclay “many a good man.” Other common renderings are “men who did God’s will” and “men who obeyed God.”

Longed is the rendering of several translations (New Jerusalem Bible, New American Bible, Barclay); New English Bible has “desired,” and Good News Translation “wanted very much.”

To see … and did not hear it may be restructured and shortened: “… to see and hear what you have seen and heard, but they did not” or “… but they did not see or hear it.”

There will be cases where what the disciples are seeing and hearing will have to be made more explicit. Barclay has “to see the events which you are seeing” and “to hear the words which you are hearing.”

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 .