Verse 35 uses a different imagery to repeat the thought of verse 34. The good man is to be understood in the sense of “A good person” (Good News Translation).

Good treasure is rendered “treasure of good things” (Good News Translation), “the store of good” (New English Bible), and “his store of goodness” (Jerusalem Bible, New American Bible). The Greek word treasure may refer to the treasure itself, or to the box, room, or house in which the treasure is stored. Both the context (verse 34) and the parallel in Luke 6.45 (“good treasure of his heart”) indicate that the place where the treasure is stored is compared to the heart. Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch removes the figure entirely and translates the verse “A good man brings forth good because he is good in his innermost being. An evil man can only bring forth evil because he is evil from the ground up.”

Of course, there are ways to retain the figure and still convey the meaning. Examples for the first half of the verse are “A good man is able to bring out good things (or, actions) from the great good that is in him like a treasure” and “A good man has good stored up in him like a treasure, and so he does good things.”

Some can use the same type of sentence for the evil man, but it may not seem natural to speak of a treasure of evil. Then possible renderings may be “An evil man can bring out only evil things (or, actions) from the great evil that is in him like in a store room” or “An evil man has evil stored up in him like in a store house, and so he does evil things.”

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 .