King James Bible
"Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth:"
Jesus references the oral tradition and teaching that His audience would have received in synagogues. This formulaic introduction signals that He is about to reinterpret or expand upon a familiar legal principle from the Torah. This quotes the lex talionis from Exodus 21:24, which originally limited revenge by ensuring punishment matched the crime rather than escalating. In Jesus' time, this principle had been codified into monetary compensation rather than literal physical retaliation.