Matthew 12:36 - Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Bible Comments

But I say unto you ... - Christ closes this address to his malignant and wicked hearers by a solemn declaration that for these things God would bring them into judgment. Therefore. They who had spoken so malignantly against him, could not escape.

Idle word - This literally means a vain, thoughtless, useless word; a word that accomplishes no good. Here it means, evidently, “wicked, injurious, false, malicious, for such” were the words which they had spoken.

Matthew 12:36

36 But I say unto you, That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment.