Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. The first Beatitude addresses the poor in spirit — those who know their own spiritual bankruptcy, who have no inner resources to present to God as evidence of their fitness for his kingdom. The corresponding Isaiah passage is 61:1, where the servant is anointed to bring good news to the poor. Luke's version reads simply the poor (Luke 6:20); Matthew's the poor in spirit interprets the material poverty as a spiritual posture — the awareness of need that is the precondition of receiving. Theirs is the kingdom — present tense, not future: the kingdom belongs to these people now. The first and eighth Beatitudes both end with present-tense kingdom language (verse 10), framing the whole as a present reality.

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