ὁ οὐρανὸς καὶ ἡ γῆ ⸀παρελεύσεται, οἱ δὲ λόγοι μου οὐ μὴ παρέλθωσιν.

Translation:

“Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.”

This Greek formulation appears in Matthew 24:35 and Mark 13:31, where Jesus makes an absolute pronouncement about the permanence of his teaching against the transience of creation itself.

Exegesis:

The saying establishes a stark contrast between the material cosmos and Christ’s words. Heaven here refers not to God’s dwelling place but to the whole material universe[1]. The verb παρέλθωσιν (will pass away) appears twice—first describing the fate of creation, then negated to emphasize the inviolability of Jesus’ words. This rhetorical structure underscores an almost incomprehensible claim: what seems most permanent and stable will dissolve, yet Christ’s utterances will endure eternally.

Jesus expected his spoken words to have lasting permanence[2], and within an apocalyptic context describing troubling end-of-the-world events, Jesus declared that his words were true—as true as the very existence of heaven and earth—and permanent[2]. The statement functions as a guarantee of his prophetic authority rather than a comment on written Scripture.

Jesus taught that the moral principles he conveyed would never pass away because they were the moral principles of the eternal world[1]. This connects to Old Testament precedent: the word of God endures forever (Isa 40:8), and God’s word that goes out from his mouth will accomplish what he desires and achieve the purpose for which he sent it (Isa 55:10–11). Those who regulate their lives in accordance with Jesus’ words have lifted their existence above the changes and chances of mortal life into the sphere of the eternal[1].

[1] J. H. B. Masterman, In the Footsteps of the Master: Sermon Outlines on St. Mark’s Gospel (London; New York; Toronto: The Church Family Newspaper; Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge; The Macmillan Co., 1922), 90–91.
[2] John H. Walton and D. Brent Sandy, The Lost World of Scripture: Ancient Literary Culture and Biblical Authority (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic: An Imprint of InterVarsity Press, 2013), 137–138.