Matthew 5:28

But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman to lust after her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

Berean Standard Bible

Study note

Setting — Jesus addresses his disciples and the crowd on the Mount, immediately after restating the sixth commandment (v. 27), and before the hyperbolic eye-and-hand sayings (vv. 29–30). He is not adding a new rule but tightening the existing one to its root.

The words — βλέπων (blepōn), "looking upon," is a present participle: not a passing glance but a sustained, deliberate gaze. The grammar marks the act as ongoing and chosen, not accidental.

The thread — Proverbs 6:25 warns against lusting in the heart for a woman's beauty; 1 John 2:16 names "the desires of the eyes" as part of what is not from the Father; James 1:14 traces temptation to one's own evil desire drawing a person away.

Why it lands — The verse removes the gap between inner desire and outward act: the heart's movement is treated as the deed itself. It asks the reader to regard sustained, objectifying gaze as a real moral event, not a private thought with no standing.

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

But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.

Cross-references

James 1:14 But each one is tempted when by his own evil desires he is lured away and enticed.
1 John 2:16 For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh, the desires of the eyes, and the pride of life—is not from the Father but from the world.
Proverbs 6:25 Do not lust in your heart for her beauty or let her captivate you with her eyes.
Exodus 20:17 You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his manservant or maidservant, or his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.”
2 Samuel 11:2 One evening David got up from his bed and strolled around on the roof of the palace. And from the roof he saw a woman bathing—a very beautiful woman.
Job 31:1 “I have made a covenant with my eyes. How then could I gaze with desire at a virgin?
Genesis 34:2 When Shechem son of Hamor the Hivite, the prince of the region, saw her, he took her and lay with her by force.
Romans 7:7 What then shall we say? Is the law sin? Certainly not! Indeed, I would not have been mindful of sin if not for the law. For I would not have been aware of coveting if the law had not said, “Do not covet.”
2 Peter 2:14 Their eyes are full of adultery; their desire for sin is never satisfied; they seduce the unstable. They are accursed children with hearts trained in greed.
Job 31:9 If my heart has been enticed by my neighbor’s wife, or I have lurked at his door,