The Book of Matthew — Audio Bible

Read or listen to Matthew in your preferred translation

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About the book of Matthew

Theme. Jesus is the King of the kingdom of heaven.

Why it matters. Matthew has been the most-read gospel in church history and is foundational to Christian discipleship — particularly in the Anabaptist tradition, which takes the Sermon on the Mount as binding ethics.

Why Matthew opens with a list of names

The first page of the New Testament is a genealogy, and the choice is deliberate. Forty-two generations march from Abraham through David down to a carpenter's family, and tucked among the fathers are four unexpected women — Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and the wife of Uriah — outsiders and survivors whose stories were anything but tidy. Before Jesus says a single word, Matthew has made an argument: Israel's long, tangled history has been going somewhere all along. The book keeps that argument alive with a steady drumbeat of prophetic quotations, each event landing where the prophets said it would. Yet for all its Jewish texture, Matthew ends facing outward, with the risen Jesus sending his followers to every nation. A story that begins with Abraham's family closes with the whole world invited in.

Five sermons and the shape of the book

Matthew gathers Jesus' teaching into five great blocks: the Sermon on the Mount, instructions for the sent-out Twelve, parables of the kingdom, rules for life inside the believing community, and the judgment discourse on the Mount of Olives. Between them run stretches of narrative — healings in bunches, confrontations that sharpen, a slow walk toward Jerusalem. Many readers, ancient and modern, have heard an echo of the five books of Moses, with Jesus teaching from a mountain as one greater than the lawgiver. Whatever Matthew intended by the pattern, the effect is a gospel built for teaching. Its sayings are compact and portable — salt and light, the narrow gate, the house on the rock — shaped to lodge in a hearer's memory and stay there.

The hinge of the two testaments

Standing first in the New Testament, Matthew works like a doorway. Look back through it and you see the prophets: a child from Bethlehem, a voice in the wilderness, a king arriving on a donkey. Look forward and you see the church — Matthew is the only gospel in which Jesus uses the word, and the only one to record his promise to build it. The book insists that the God of Sinai and the Father of Jesus are one, and that the kingdom of heaven is not an escape from Israel's story but its intended harvest. That double vision, deeply rooted and wide open at once, is a large part of why this gospel came to stand at the head of the canon.

The gospel the earliest churches wore out

No gospel was copied, quoted, or preached from more in the church's first centuries than Matthew. Ignatius of Antioch, writing around AD 110, already echoes its wording. The Didache, an early manual of church life, teaches the Lord's Prayer in Matthew's form and tells believers to pray it three times a day. Above all, the Sermon on the Mount became the backbone of instruction for new converts — taken not as an impossible ideal but as the actual shape of a baptized life: love of enemies, plain speech, almsgiving done in secret. When early believers wanted to know what following Jesus concretely required of them, this was the book they opened first.

Reading guide: Matthew chapter by chapter

• Chapters 1–4: From Abraham's line to the wilderness test
• Chapters 5–7: The Sermon on the Mount
• Chapters 8–10: Miracles in bunches, the Twelve sent out
• Chapters 11–13: Rising opposition and kingdom parables
• Chapters 14–18: Peter's confession and life together
• Chapters 19–23: The road to Jerusalem and temple showdowns
• Chapters 24–25: The Olivet discourse on the end
• Chapters 26–28: Betrayal, cross, empty tomb, commission

How to listen to Matthew on The Historic Faith

This guide is built for listening through the whole book of Matthew, not just opening a single chapter. The chapter links below open the Bible reader with synchronized text, verse-by-verse audio highlighting, playback speed controls, and the same study tools available across the Audio Bible. You can begin with chapter 1, continue through all 28 chapters, or return later and pick up any chapter directly from this page.

Matthew is available in multiple English editions. The reader keeps the text visible while the audio plays, so you can follow the wording, slow down difficult passages, and compare translations without losing your place. No account is required to listen, read, or use the chapter links.

For study, use the interlinear and Strong's tools from the reader page. New Testament chapters link into Greek word study, parsing, and lexical helps. Each chapter also connects naturally with the church fathers commentary and the broader library, so the book can be read devotionally, studied historically, or used as a reference while listening.

Before listening, it can help to read the theme and background above, then scan the notable chapters and frequently asked questions below. Those notes summarize why Matthew matters, how it fits into the larger biblical story, and where readers often begin when they want to understand the book as a whole.

Matthew chapter listening guide

Use these chapter links as a quick listening plan. Each link opens a dedicated chapter page with the same translation controls, synchronized text, and study tools, so the book can be read or heard one chapter at a time.

• Matthew 1 Listen to Matthew chapter 1 with verse highlighting, readable chapter text, translation controls, and integrated study links.
• Matthew 2 Listen to Matthew chapter 2 with verse highlighting, readable chapter text, translation controls, and integrated study links.
• Matthew 3 Listen to Matthew chapter 3 with verse highlighting, readable chapter text, translation controls, and integrated study links.
• Matthew 4 Listen to Matthew chapter 4 with verse highlighting, readable chapter text, translation controls, and integrated study links.
• Matthew 5 Listen to Matthew chapter 5 with verse highlighting, readable chapter text, translation controls, and integrated study links.
• Matthew 6 Listen to Matthew chapter 6 with verse highlighting, readable chapter text, translation controls, and integrated study links.
• Matthew 7 Listen to Matthew chapter 7 with verse highlighting, readable chapter text, translation controls, and integrated study links.
• Matthew 8 Listen to Matthew chapter 8 with verse highlighting, readable chapter text, translation controls, and integrated study links.
• Matthew 9 Listen to Matthew chapter 9 with verse highlighting, readable chapter text, translation controls, and integrated study links.
• Matthew 10 Listen to Matthew chapter 10 with verse highlighting, readable chapter text, translation controls, and integrated study links.
• Matthew 11 Listen to Matthew chapter 11 with verse highlighting, readable chapter text, translation controls, and integrated study links.
• Matthew 12 Listen to Matthew chapter 12 with verse highlighting, readable chapter text, translation controls, and integrated study links.
• Remaining chapters Continue through chapters 13-28 in the full chapter grid below. Every chapter uses the same free reader experience and can be opened directly.

Ways to use this Matthew audio Bible page

Treat this page as the book hub for Matthew. The summary, chapter guide, full chapter grid, study links, and questions are gathered here so you can decide where to begin before opening the reader. That keeps the listening page focused on the chapter itself while this page gives the book-level context that helps the chapter make sense.

• Listen Start with chapter 1 when you want to hear Matthew straight through, or choose a later chapter when a reading plan, sermon, class, or personal study has already pointed you to a specific passage.
• Read Keep the text open while the audio plays. The reader is designed for slow, attentive reading, quick review, and comparison across available English translations without leaving the chapter.
• Study Use the interlinear, Strong's concordance, and church fathers links when a verse in Matthew needs closer attention. Those tools are connected from the reader and from the study section below.
• Continue Return to this page as your table of contents for Matthew. Each chapter link stays stable, so it can be bookmarked, shared, or reopened when you want to continue listening later.

For family worship, classroom use, or personal reading, the stable chapter links make it easy to assign a passage and return to the same place later. A teacher can send students directly to a chapter of Matthew, a small group can listen before discussing the text, and an individual reader can keep the book page open as a simple table of contents.

On mobile, the book hub is meant to stay simple: choose a chapter, open the reader, listen with the text in view, and come back here when you are ready for the next chapter. On desktop, the same links work well beside notes, sermon prep, church fathers references, or the interlinear tools used for closer word study.

What each Matthew chapter page includes

The chapter pages linked from this hub are built for more than passive playback. Each chapter keeps the biblical text, audio controls, study links, and navigation together so you can listen, read, compare, and continue through Matthew without hunting through separate tools.

• Audio Playback controls stay with the chapter, including speed options and verse-level progress, so a short chapter can be reviewed quickly and a longer chapter can be paused and resumed without losing the passage.
• Text The chapter text remains visible beside the audio experience. This makes Matthew useful for reading aloud, quiet listening, pronunciation practice, sermon preparation, and verse-by-verse review.
• Compare Translation controls let you compare the available English editions while staying inside the same book and chapter flow.
• Words Word-study links connect the passage to Strong's and interlinear helps, so repeated names, theological terms, commands, promises, and historical details in Matthew can be checked more closely.
• Context Related library and church fathers links help connect a chapter of Matthew with historic Christian interpretation, making the page useful for devotional reading and deeper research.

Notable chapters in Matthew

• Matthew 5 The Beatitudes
• Matthew 6 The Lord\u2019s Prayer
• Matthew 7 Sermon on the Mount conclusion
• Matthew 28 The Great Commission

All 28 chapters of Matthew

Tap any chapter number to listen with verse-by-verse highlighting. Defaults to KJV; you can switch translations on the player page.

Study Matthew deeper

Frequently asked questions about Matthew