Matthew 5:35 teaches that you should not swear by the earth or by Jerusalem to make a promise sound more binding, because both belong to God and are not yours to use as collateral. The verse is part of the Sermon on the Mount, which Jesus preached to his disciples and to the crowds gathered around him in Galilee.
Nor by the earth, for it is the footstool of his feet; nor by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King.
Matthew 5:35 (WEB)
What Matthew 5:35 Means
The verse follows a pattern. Jesus has just said that people should not swear by heaven, because heaven is God’s throne. Now he names two more things people commonly called on to lend weight to their words: the earth and Jerusalem. Each one is described as belonging to God. The earth is his footstool, and Jerusalem is the city of the great King. Swearing by them borrows authority that is not ours to borrow.
The point is about honesty, not about the words “I swear” in a courtroom or a vow before God. Jesus wants his followers to be people whose plain “yes” and “no” can be trusted without decoration. If your word needs an oath to be believed, something in your ordinary speech has already gone wrong. The verse does not promise that oaths are always sinful in every setting, and it does not settle every question about legal testimony. It addresses the habit of inflating your word by pointing to things that are really God’s.
The Context of Matthew 5:35
Matthew wrote this Gospel for a community with a strong Jewish background, and he presents Jesus as the teacher who fulfills and deepens the law of Moses. The Sermon on the Mount is Jesus’ large-scale teaching on how the kingdom of heaven shapes the heart, not just outward behavior. Verses 33 through 37 deal with vows, and Jesus introduces his teaching with the phrase “you have heard that it was said,” then sets his own instruction alongside the older rule.
Read this way, the verse is less a rule about vocabulary and more a call to integrity. The sentences right before it deal with divorce and right after it with retaliation, so the surrounding material is about faithfulness in relationships and restraint in response to others. When your words are simple and true, you have less need to manufacture trust, and the verse fits naturally into that larger picture of a life oriented toward God.
Key Phrases in Matthew 5:35
James 5:12
But above all things, my brothers, don’t swear— not by heaven, or by the earth, or by any other oath; but let your “yes” be “yes”, and your “no”, “no”; so that you don’t fall into hypocrisy.
(WEB)
James gives a parallel instruction against swearing by heaven, earth, or any other oath. He ties the command to simple truthfulness, so that your yes means yes and your no means no. Reading it alongside Matthew 5:35 shows that this teaching was a shared concern across the early church.
Proverbs 12:22
Lying lips are an abomination to the LORD, but those who do the truth are his delight.
(WEB)
Proverbs describes the Lord’s delight in people who deal faithfully and the sharp contrast with those who lie. The wisdom literature supplies the everyday reason behind the command: truthful speech reflects a character that God honors. It shows why Jesus cares so much about the plainness of your word.
A Short Prayer From Matthew 5:35
Lord, you are the great King, and the earth is under your feet. I confess how often I reach for something bigger than my own word to make people believe me. Teach me to speak plainly and to keep my promises, so that my yes can be trusted and my no can be trusted too. Let my honesty be quiet and steady, resting on your faithfulness rather than my own cleverness. Amen.
