King James is Dreadfully Wrong in Matthew 6:7

And incidentally, some Protestants give me a vibe of insincerity, if it is not incompetence, or possibly the insincerity masks as incompetence.

If 2 Bibles say different things can they both be God's words? - Is this important?
Waimak Bible Chapel | 26 June 2025
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBEqLu7_lM0

Have you checked out the Protestant mistranslation in Matthew 6:7?

Geneva Bible, Bishops' Bible, KJ, perhaps a few more Protestant ones.

Waimak Bible

@WaimakBible

Hi I have looked up all the Catholic translations I can find and in this verse they agree with the KJV. Which Catholic translation disagrees and why? Catholic translations generally look similar to Protestant Bibles so that people don’t notice the important differences. Thanks for your input😀

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@hglundahl

@WaimakBible N O ...

Here is King James:

But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking.

By contrast, here is Douay Rheims, the classic English language Bible of the Catholic Church, Challoner revision:

And when you are praying, speak not much, as the heathens. For they think that in their much speaking they may be heard

I'm not speaking about the "but" vs the "and" but the difference between "use not vain repetitions" and "speak not much"

Here is another Catholic nearly as Classic one, Father Ronald Knox:

Moreover, when you are at prayer, do not use many phrases, like the heathens, who think to make themselves heard by their eloquence.

There is a clear difference between repeating one phrase and using many (different) phrases.

Here is a footnote he made on the verse:

The very rare verb which our Lord uses here probably means to ‘stammer’, to ‘hesitate’. The heathens used to address their gods by a series of titles, with the superstitious idea that the prayer would not be heard unless the right title was hit upon.

And I can confirm this, no Greco-Roman pagan had anything like the Rosary or the Litany or the Jesus prayer, but you can look up Velleius Paterculus, Roman History, book II, last chapter, where the author concludes the work with a prayer to the gods and does precisely exactly what Father Ronald Knox described in the footnote.