---
title: Matthew 5:33
url: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/matthew-5-33/
markdown: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/matthew-5-33.md
type: verse
perspective: Protestant (historic Nicene) response to Jehovah's Witness teaching
reference: Matthew 5:33
testament: NT
section: Gospels
index: https://jw-apologetics.app/llms.txt
---

# Matthew 5:33

## Text (Berean Standard Bible)

> Again, you have heard that it was said to the ancients, ‘Do not break your oath, but fulfill your vows to the Lord.’

## NWT Wording of the Key Phrase

- NWT (1984 edition): ""You must pay your vows to Jehovah""
- NWT (2013 revision): "Again you heard that it was said to those of ancient times: 'You must not swear without performing, but you must pay your vows to Jehovah.'"

## JW Usage

JWs cite Matthew 5:33-37 to teach honesty in speech and the seriousness of vows — let your yes mean yes. The lesson is applied to personal integrity at work and in family life but rarely applied as a diagnostic to the Watchtower's own dual-audience pattern (one message in print, another under oath in court).

## Protestant Usage

Jesus' command — "let your yes be yes, and your no, no" — is the benchmark for institutional truth-telling, not just personal honesty. Use this verse to frame the Geoffrey Jackson Royal Commission contradiction: the same Watchtower that publishes Governing Body channel-of-communication language to its own members ("Unless we are in touch with this channel of communication that God is using, we will not progress along the road to life", Watchtower December 1, 1981 p. 27) had its representative testify under oath in 2015 that calling the Governing Body God's spokespeople would be "presumptuous". A yes-in-print and no-under-oath cannot both be the Lord's yes.

## NWT Issue

The NWT 2013 inserts "Jehovah" into Jesus' citation of the OT swearing command — "you must pay your vows to Jehovah". The underlying Greek text uses kurios (Lord). The insertion is consistent with the NWT's general policy of substituting "Jehovah" for kurios in OT-citation contexts within the New Testament. The insertion is defensible at this point because the Old Testament source (Numbers 30:2; Deuteronomy 23:21) does use the Tetragrammaton — but it is not in any Greek manuscript of Matthew, and the J-source documents the NWT cites for these insertions are mediaeval Hebrew translations rather than ancient witnesses.

## Arguments Using This Verse

- [Geoffrey Jackson's ARC Testimony — One Voice in Court, Another in Print](https://jw-apologetics.app/arguments/geoffrey-jackson-arc-testimony.md) — Matthew 5:33-37 — Let your yes be yes [Authority]