Matthew 5:38 is the thirty-eight verse of the fifth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew

Gospel of Matthew

The Gospel According to Matthew is one of the four canonical gospels, one of the three synoptic gospels, and the first book of the New Testament. It tells of the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth...

 in the New Testament

New Testament

The New Testament is the second major division of the Christian biblical canon, the first such division being the much longer Old Testament....

 and is part of the Sermon on the Mount

Sermon on the Mount

The Sermon on the Mount is a collection of sayings and teachings of Jesus, which emphasizes his moral teaching found in the Gospel of Matthew...

. This verse begins the antithesis

Antithesis

Antithesis is a counter-proposition and denotes a direct contrast to the original proposition...

 on punishment

Punishment

Punishment is the authoritative imposition of something negative or unpleasant on a person or animal in response to behavior deemed wrong by an individual or group....

, one of the most important parts of the New Testament.

In the King James Version of the Bible

Bible

The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...

 the text reads:

Ye have heard that it hath been said,

An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth:

The World English Bible

World English Bible

The World English Bible is a public domain translation of the Bible that is currently in draft form. Work on the World English Bible began in 1997 and was known as the American Standard Version 1997...

 translates the passage as:

“You have heard that it was said,

‘An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.’

For a collection of other versions see BibRef Matthew 5:38

This verse begins in the same style as the earlier antitheses, with a reference to the Old Testament. An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth, known as the principle of lex talionis, is an ancient statement of the principle of retributive punishment dating back to the Code of Hammurabi

Code of Hammurabi

The Code of Hammurabi is a well-preserved Babylonian law code, dating to ca. 1780 BC . It is one of the oldest deciphered writings of significant length in the world. The sixth Babylonian king, Hammurabi, enacted the code, and partial copies exist on a human-sized stone stele and various clay...

. This phrasing appears several times in the Old Testament at Exodus 21:24, Leviticus

Leviticus

The Book of Leviticus is the third book of the Hebrew Bible, and the third of five books of the Torah ....

 24:20, and Deuteronomy

Deuteronomy

The Book of Deuteronomy is the fifth book of the Hebrew Bible, and of the Jewish Torah/Pentateuch...

 19:21. This was a moderate rule compared with the blood feud

Blood Feud

"Blood Feud" is the twenty-second and final episode of The Simpsons second season. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on July 11, 1991. In the episode, Mr. Burns falls ill and desperately needs a blood transfusion. Homer discovers Bart has Burns' rare blood type and urges...

s described in Genesis 4:23-24. France notes that by Jesus' era such punishments were no longer in practice, rather they had been replaced with fines judged to be of equal value to the damage caused. Thus, according to France, Jesus

Jesus

Jesus of Nazareth , commonly referred to as Jesus Christ or simply as Jesus or Christ, is the central figure of Christianity...

is not here condemning the violence or brutality of such punishments, but the very idea of retribution.