And why are you anxious about clothing? is a fairly literal rendering of the Greek text. This question may also be phrased as a statement: “There is no need to worry about clothes.” Or a question can be retained, as in “Is there any need to worry about clothing?”

For comments on anxious, see verse 25.

To worry about clothing means “to worry about having enough clothing.”

Consider can be “think about” or “look at,” or, as Good News Translation has it, “Look.”

Lilies of the field (so also New International Version) is rendered “wild flowers” by Good News Translation, New American Bible, An American Translation, and Phillips. New Jerusalem Bible has “flowers growing in the fields,” and Barclay has “wild lilies.” There is some discussion regarding the precise reference intended by the Greek word used here and in Luke 12.27. Most commentators apparently prefer to take it as a reference to the anemone, a beautiful flower of bright colors. It is found on the Galilean hills, and it would undoubtedly have been observed by the people who listened to Jesus.

For this reason, then, most translations will not use lilies but will follow Good News Translation or New Jerusalem Bible, as cited above. They may have “flowers growing in the fields,” “flowers growing wild,” or “flowers growing in the forest.”

Spin is translated “make clothes for themselves” by Good News Translation. The picture is that of spinning fiber to make clothes. Both Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch and Bible en français courant translate in the tradition of Good News Bible. Some translations have had a slight change from this by saying “They don’t work to make clothes” or “They don’t work to make cloth for clothing themselves.”

Quoted with permission from Newman, Barclay M. and Stine, Philip C. A Handbook on the Gospel of Matthew. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1988. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .