Matthew 18:11: Why Modern Bibles Leave It Out, and the Evidence

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Matthew 18:11

“For the Son of man is come to save that which was lost” is the reading of the great majority of Greek manuscripts and of Codex Bezae and Codex Washingtonianus of the fifth century, and the Vulgate has it. Chrysostom preached on it in his homilies on Matthew about AD 390.

The King James Bible

11 For the Son of man is come to save that which was lost. Read Matthew 18

ἦλθεν γὰρ ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου σῶσαι τὸ ἀπολωλός. ēlthen gar ho huios tou anthrōpou sōsai to apolōlos

Greek Manuscripts

Byzantine manuscripts 𝔐 9th–16th centuries

Checked against: TAGNT (Robinson–Pierpont)
Codex Washingtonianus W 032 4th–5th century

Checked against: CNTR transcription
Codex Bezae D 05 5th century

Checked against: CNTR transcription

Early Translations

Latin Vulgate vg Jerome, c. 400

Checked against: Clementine Vulgate (1592)

Church Fathers

John Chrysostom Homilies on Matthew 59.4 · c. AD 390

“But when He says, The face of my Father, He means nothing else than their fuller confidence, and their great honor. For the Son of Man has come to save that which was lost.”

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, series 1, vol. 10 ›

Checked against: NPNF1 10

Printed Greek Texts with This Reading

Textus Receptus · The Greek text the KJV was translated from, as Scrivener printed it (1894)
Majority Text · The Byzantine text, read by the great majority of Greek manuscripts (Robinson and Pierpont, 2005)

Quotations from the Ante-Nicene and Nicene Fathers translations. Edition data from the Translators Amalgamated Greek NT, STEPBible.org (CC BY). About these texts and witnesses.