What Does Matthew 23:3 Mean?
So whatever they tell you to guard, guard and do; but do not do according to their works, for they say and do not.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
All therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do; but do not ye after their works: for they say, and do not.THE KEY
Truth can remain worth doing even when the person teaching it refuses to do it.
THE MEANING
This verse lets you receive sound instruction without treating the instructor’s conduct as its proof: what is right remains worth practicing, while the example before you can still be false. It exposes the fracture between speech and action as something visible now, not something concealed by authority.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A teacher’s authority makes their conduct a trustworthy pattern.
THE ROOT
ποιεῖτε
poieite
GROWS FROM
ποιέω
poieō
to do, make, bring about
The repeated verb for doing can also mean making: action gives words a concrete form. The teachers’ failure is a practice left unmade, while the command to do makes instruction visible in life.
ALSO GROWS
poiēma: thing made; workmanship
ποίημα
The branch makes the link between doing and what takes shape through it; the verse asks whether instruction takes shape in conduct.
poiētēs: doer; maker
ποιητής
A doer is identified by what is enacted, bringing the verse’s contrast between saying and doing into focus.
τηρεῖτε
tēreite
GROWS FROM
τηρέω
tēreō
to keep watch over, guard, preserve
“guard” in this verse is tēreite. What English can make sound like bare compliance also carries the sense of keeping watch over something entrusted. The instruction is to keep its words in practice; the contrast comes when the teachers’ own lives refuse that keeping.
ALSO GROWS
tērēsis: keeping; observance; custody
τήρησις
This noun makes the protective sense of keeping explicit, deepening observe beyond simply noticing.
diatēreō: preserve carefully; keep
διατηρέω
This compound branch shows keeping as something sustained over time, fitting the verse’s call to retain instruction in practice.
ἔργα
erga
GROWS FROM
ἔργον
ergon
work, deed; something done
The verse names their conduct as deeds that give words a visible shape, then says those deeds do not match their speech. Works are not an abstract reputation here; they are the lived evidence of what a person does.
ALSO GROWS
ergatēs: worker; laborer
ἐργάτης
The worker branch points to a person through the work they do, echoing the verse’s focus on conduct.
energeō: work; be at work; bring about
ἐνεργέω
This branch carries work as active effect, clarifying how actions make a difference beyond spoken claims.
THE PATTERN
Scripture tests words by whether they are enacted, exposing speech that lives apart from its own instruction.
But to the wicked, God says, What is it to you, to recount my statutes, or to lift my covenant upon your mouth? And you hate straightening, and throw my words behind you.But be makers of the word, and not hearers only, miscounting yourselves.Little children, let us not love in word, nor in the tongue, but in works and in truth.THE THREAD
Therefore, everyone who hears these words of mine and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house upon the rock.Matthew 7:24 uses the same verb, ποιέω (poieō, to do or make), for putting sayings into practice. Here the teachers’ lives expose a gap between their words and actions; there, hearing joined to doing becomes a foundation.
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