Luke 5:36

He also told them a parable: “No one tears a piece of cloth from a new garment and sews it on an old one. If he does, he will tear the new garment as well, and the patch from the new will not match the old.

Berean Standard Bible

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Study note

Setting — Jesus delivers this parable to his immediate audience right after warning that the bridegroom will be taken away and fasting will follow.

The words — ἔλεγεν (elegen) marks the ongoing act of speaking, and παραβολὴν (parabolēn) classifies the teaching as a parable. οὐδεὶς (oudeis) establishes the absolute prohibition against the action described.

The thread — The identical patching analogy appears in Matthew 9:16 and Mark 2:21, while 2 Corinthians 6:16 extends the underlying principle to the incompatibility between the temple of God and idols.

Why it lands — The text states that tearing cloth from a new garment to patch an old one ruins both materials, requiring readers to acknowledge that old religious structures cannot contain new divine action.

Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.

The Greek words

King James Version

And he spake also a parable unto them; No man putteth a piece of a new garment upon an old; if otherwise, then both the new maketh a rent, and the piece that was taken out of the new agreeth not with the old.

Cross-references

Matthew 9:16 No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. For the patch will pull away from the garment, and a worse tear will result.
Mark 2:21 No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. If he does, the new piece will pull away from the old, and a worse tear will result.
2 Corinthians 6:16 What agreement can exist between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said: “I will dwell with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be My people.”
Leviticus 19:19 You are to keep My statutes. You shall not crossbreed two different kinds of livestock; you shall not sow your fields with two kinds of seed; and you shall not wear clothing made of two kinds of material.
Deuteronomy 22:11 Do not wear clothes of wool and linen woven together.