Misinterpretations often claim the verse prohibits any glance at an attractive person, ignoring the specific intent of lustful looking to gratify desire; others reduce it to mere visual temptation for men only, overlooking mutual application across genders and forms of lust like emotional or mental infidelity; some misuse it to foster guilt over normal attraction rather than addressing deliberate, objectifying thoughts.
Matthew 5:28
King James Version (1769)
28 But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus intensifies the Seventh Commandment by teaching that adultery is not merely a physical act but originates in the heart, where lustfully eyeing someone with covetous desire equates to committing adultery inwardly, urging believers to pursue purity in thoughts and intentions as essential to righteous living before God.