Matthew 5:6 is the sixth 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 fourth 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 fourth 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 they which do hunger

and thirst after righteousness:

for they shall be filled.

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 those who hunger

and thirst after righteousness,

for they shall be filled.

For a collection of other versions see BibRef Matthew 5:6

Albright and Mann note that fasting

Fasting

Fasting is primarily the act of willingly abstaining from some or all food, drink, or both, for a period of time. An absolute fast is normally defined as abstinence from all food and liquid for a defined period, usually a single day , or several days. Other fasts may be only partially restrictive,...

 was a common sign of righteousness, and one that Jesus has already endured at Matthew 4:2

Matthew 4:2

Matthew 4:2 is the second verse of the fourth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew in the New Testament. This verse is just preceding the section in Matthew dealing with the temptation of Christ by Satan...

. The metaphor of God or the messiah as a feast ending a fast occurs several times in the scripture including Isaiah 55:1, Jeremiah 31:25, and Psalm 107:9. Like the first two Beatitudes this one seems to similar to one in Luke, in this case with Luke 6:21. Luke only has the blessed hunger

Hunger

Hunger is the most commonly used term to describe the social condition of people who frequently experience the physical sensation of desiring food.-Malnutrition, famine, starvation:...

, Gundry feels the author of Matthew added thirst

Thirst

Thirst is the craving for fluids, resulting in the basic instinct of animals to drink. It is an essential mechanism involved in fluid balance. It arises from a lack of fluids and/or an increase in the concentration of certain osmolites, such as salt...

 to match Isaiah 49:10. Schweizer feels that the addition of thirst is a minor one, but the addition of the word righteousness

Righteousness

Righteousness is an important theological concept in Zoroastrianism, Hinduism , Judaism, Christianity and Islam...

 is a major one. As with Matthew 5:3

Matthew 5:3

Matthew 5:3 is the third verse of the fifth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew in the New Testament. It is the opening verse of the Sermon on the Mount, and the section of the sermon known as the Beatitudes....

, the author of Matthew turns a phrase that focuses on the merely physical in Luke into one far more focused on the spiritual. Righteousness is one of the key concepts in the Gospel of Matthew, though what exactly is meant by the term is not always clear. All the references to righteousness in the Gospel are unique to Matthew, and thus likely are additions by the author.