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 words “to judge” could be used as referring to a court of justice, to the tribunals from whose punishments so many millions have suffered.

Moreover, when the words, “Judge not, condemn not,” are under discussion, the cruelty of judging in courts of justice is passed over in silence, or else commended. The commentators all declare that in Christian societies tribunals are necessary, and in no way contrary to the law of Jesus.

Realizing this, I began to doubt the sincerity of the commentators; and I did what I should have done in the first place; I turned to the textual translations of the words which we render “to judge” and “to condemn.” In the original these words are and. The defective translation in James of, which is rendered “to speak evil,” strengthened my doubts as to the correct translation of the others. When I looked through different versions of the Gospels, I found rendered in the Vulgate by condemnare, “to condemn”; in the Slavonian text the rendering is equivalent to that of the Vulgate; Luther has verdammen, “to speak evil of.” These divergent renderings increased my doubts, and I was obliged to ask again the meaning of, as used by the two evangelists, and of , as used by Luke who, scholars tell us, wrote very correct Greek.

How would these words be translated by a man