Matthew 7:3

Mote] lit. 'a small dry twig or stalk.' Here it stands for a relatively small fault.

The beam] i.e. the great roof-beam of a house, something a thousand times larger than the eye itself. Here it stands for 'want of love,' the most monstrous, under Christ's law, of all vices. Here Christ again adopts a Jewish proverb. It is said that when one Jewish judge criticised another and said, 'Cast out the mote out of thine eye,' the other replied, 'Cast you out the beam out of your own eye.'