In many languages will be humbled and will be exalted are better translated as active forms with God as the expressed subject (so Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch). In English a shift from the indefinite relative pronoun whoever to the second person pronoun “you” will probably sound more natural; for example, “If (any of) you make yourself great, God will humble you. If (any of) you humble yourself, God will make you great.” For some languages a first person plural inclusive form will be more natural: “If we … God will … us.”

Will be humbled and humbles himself are two forms of the same verb, but by virtue of their grammatical role, they do in fact mean slightly different things. Humbles himself can be expressed as “puts himself in a low position” but also “keeps a humble attitude.” Will be humbled, on the other hand, does not involve an attitude of humility so much as it means to be made unimportant or brought to a low position, in this case by God, as seen in the examples in the previous paragraph.

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 .