Physician, heal thyself (Greek: Ἰατρέ, θεράπευσον σεαυτόν — Iatre, therapeuson seauton), sometimes quoted in the Latin form Cura te ipsum, is a proverb found in Luke 4:23.
The usual interpretation of this passage is that, during the Rejection of Jesus, Jesus expected to hear natives of his hometown of Nazareth use this phrase to criticize him.Luke the Evangelist, to whom Christian tradition attributes the gospel, was himself a physician.
The moral of the proverb is counsel to attend to one's own defects rather than criticizing defects in others, a sentiment also expressed in the discourse on judgmentalism.
The Latin form of the proverb, Cura te ipsum, was made famous in the Latin translation of the Bible, the Vulgate, and is a shortening of the phrase medice, cura te ipsum.
Some commentators claim that the proverb is also an echo of the insults that he would hear while hanging on the cross, that is, the words may be interpreted as echoing the taunts to come down from the cross himself.