Matthew 5:8 is the eighth 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....

. It is the sixth verse 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...

, and also sixth of what are known as the Beatitudes

Beatitudes

In Christianity, the Beatitudes are a set of teachings by Jesus that appear in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. The term Beatitude comes from the Latin adjective beatus which means happy, fortunate, or blissful....

.

In the King James Version of the Bible the text reads:

Blessed are the pure in heart:

for they shall see God.

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:

Blessed are the pure in heart,

for they shall see God.

For a collection of other versions see BibRef Matthew 5:8

This verse is generally believed to have been taken from Psalm 24:3-5 either by Jesus

Jesus

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

 or the author of Matthew who was adding this verse that is not found in Luke. A number of scholars have been certain that there were originally seven Beatitudes, as seven was a holy number. Since this verse is so similar to the Psalm some believe it was the one incorrectly integrated into the Sermon on the Mount. Hill speculates that the verse could actually be a mistranslation of Isaiah 61:1, and should have read "only the contrite will see God."

The word purity

Purity

Purity is the absence of impurity or contaminants in a substance or abstinence from vices in human character.Purity may also refer to:*Purity , an indication of the amount of other gases in a particular gas...

 is not believed to refer to one who was ritually cleansed, but rather to internal spiritual purity as noted by the "in heart" addition. At the time the heart

Heart

The heart is a myogenic muscular organ found in all animals with a circulatory system , that is responsible for pumping blood throughout the blood vessels by repeated, rhythmic contractions...

 was literally seen as the seat of emotion

Emotion

Emotion is a complex psychophysiological experience of an individual's state of mind as interacting with biochemical and environmental influences. In humans, emotion fundamentally involves "physiological arousal, expressive behaviors, and conscious experience." Emotion is associated with mood,...

 and the soul

Soul

A soul in certain spiritual, philosophical, and psychological traditions is the incorporeal essence of a person or living thing or object. Many philosophical and spiritual systems teach that humans have souls, and others teach that all living things and even inanimate objects have souls. The...

, though today the verse is read metaphorically. Davies and Allison read a pure heart as being one that is simple and undivided in allegiance.