Matthew 23
23
The Denouncing of the Scribes and Pharisees
Mk 12:38–40; Lk 11:37–52; 20:45–47
1Then Jesus said to the crowds and to His disciples, 2#Ezr 7:6; 7:25“The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat. 3Therefore, whatever they tell you to observe, that observe and do, but do not do their works. For they speak, but do nothing. 4#Lk 11:46; Ac 15:10They fasten heavy loads that are hard to carry and lay them on men’s shoulders, but they themselves will not move them with their finger.
5#Dt 6:8; Mt 9:20“They do all their works to be seen by men. They make their Scripture boxes broad and lengthen the tassels on their prayer shawls. 6They love the places of honor at feasts, and the prominent seats in the synagogues, 7#Jn 1:38; 1:49and greetings in the marketplaces, and being called ‘Rabbi’ by men.
8#Jas 3:1; Mt 23:10“But do not be called ‘Rabbi,’ for you have one Teacher, the Christ, and you are all brothers. 9#Mal 1:6; Mt 7:11And call no man on earth your father, for you have one Father, who is in heaven. 10Nor be called teachers, for you have one Teacher, the Christ. 11He who is greatest among you shall be your servant. 12#Lk 14:11; 18:14For he who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.
13#Lk 11:52; Mt 23:27“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! You shut the kingdom of heaven against men. For you neither enter yourselves, nor allow those who are entering to go in. 14#Mk 12:40; Lk 20:47Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! You devour widows’ houses and for pretense make long prayers. Therefore you will receive the greater condemnation.
15#Ac 13:43; 2:10“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! You travel sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves.
16#Mt 15:14; 23:24“Woe to you, blind guides, who say, ‘If anyone swears by the temple, it is nothing. But if anyone swears by the gold of the temple, he is obligated.’ 17#Mt 23:19You blind fools! Which is greater, the gold or the temple that sanctifies the gold? 18And you say, ‘If anyone swears by the altar, it is nothing. But if anyone swears by the gift on it, he is obligated.’ 19#Ex 29:37You blind fools! Which is greater, the gift or the altar that sanctifies the gift? 20Therefore he who swears by the altar, swears by it and by all things on it. 21#1Ki 8:13; Ps 26:8But he who swears by the temple, swears by it and by Him who dwells in it. 22#Mt 5:34; Ps 11:4And he who swears by heaven, swears by the throne of God and by Him who sits on it.
23#Lk 11:42; Mic 6:8; 1Sa 15:22“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! You tithe mint and dill and cumin, but have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. These you ought to have done without leaving the others undone. 24#Mt 19:24You blind guides who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel!
25#Mt 15:19–20; Lk 11:39–40“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! You cleanse the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of extortion and greed. 26You blind Pharisee, first cleanse the inside of the cup and dish, that the outside of them may also be clean.
27#Lk 11:44; Ac 23:3“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but inside are full of dead men’s bones and of all uncleanness. 28#Mt 23:5So you also outwardly appear righteous to men, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.
29#Lk 11:47–48“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! You build the tombs of the prophets, and adorn the memorials of the righteous, 30and say, ‘If we lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have partaken with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’ 31#Ac 7:51–52Therefore you are witnesses against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. 32#Ge 15:16Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers’ guilt.
33#Mt 3:7; 12:34“You serpents! You generation of vipers! How can you escape the judgment of hell? 34#Mt 10:16–17; 10:23Therefore I send you prophets, and wise men, and scribes. Some of them you will kill and crucify, and some you will scourge in your synagogues and persecute them from city to city, 35#Ge 4:8; Zec 1:1that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah son of Berekiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar. 36#Mt 24:34; 10:23Truly I say to you, all these things will come on this generation.
The Lament Over Jerusalem
Lk 13:34–35
37#Ru 2:12; Mt 5:12“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those who are sent to you, how often I would have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you would not! 38#Jer 22:5Look, your house is left to you desolate. 39#Ps 118:26; Mt 21:9For I tell you, you shall not see Me again until you say, ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord.’#Ps 118:26.”
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Matthew 23: MEV
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Military Bible Association
Matthew 23
23
Religious Fashion Shows
1-3Now Jesus turned to address his disciples, along with the crowd that had gathered with them. “The religion scholars and Pharisees are competent teachers in God’s Law. You won’t go wrong in following their teachings on Moses. But be careful about following them. They talk a good line, but they don’t live it. They don’t take it into their hearts and live it out in their behavior. It’s all spit-and-polish veneer.
4-7“Instead of giving you God’s Law as food and drink by which you can banquet on God, they package it in bundles of rules, loading you down like pack animals. They seem to take pleasure in watching you stagger under these loads, and wouldn’t think of lifting a finger to help. Their lives are perpetual fashion shows, embroidered prayer shawls one day and flowery prayers the next. They love to sit at the head table at church dinners, basking in the most prominent positions, preening in the radiance of public flattery, receiving honorary degrees, and getting called ‘Doctor’ and ‘Reverend.’
8-10“Don’t let people do that to you, put you on a pedestal like that. You all have a single Teacher, and you are all classmates. Don’t set people up as experts over your life, letting them tell you what to do. Save that authority for God; let him tell you what to do. No one else should carry the title of ‘Father’; you have only one Father, and he’s in heaven. And don’t let people maneuver you into taking charge of them. There is only one Life-Leader for you and them—Christ.
11-12“Do you want to stand out? Then step down. Be a servant. If you puff yourself up, you’ll get the wind knocked out of you. But if you’re content to simply be yourself, your life will count for plenty.
Frauds!
13“I’ve had it with you! You’re hopeless, you religion scholars, you Pharisees! Frauds! Your lives are roadblocks to God’s kingdom. You refuse to enter, and won’t let anyone else in either.
15“You’re hopeless, you religion scholars and Pharisees! Frauds! You go halfway around the world to make a convert, but once you get him you make him into a replica of yourselves, double-damned.
16-22“You’re hopeless! What arrogant stupidity! You say, ‘If someone makes a promise with his fingers crossed, that’s nothing; but if he swears with his hand on the Bible, that’s serious.’ What ignorance! Does the leather on the Bible carry more weight than the skin on your hands? And what about this piece of trivia: ‘If you shake hands on a promise, that’s nothing; but if you raise your hand that God is your witness, that’s serious’? What ridiculous hairsplitting! What difference does it make whether you shake hands or raise hands? A promise is a promise. What difference does it make if you make your promise inside or outside a house of worship? A promise is a promise. God is present, watching and holding you to account regardless.
23-24“You’re hopeless, you religion scholars and Pharisees! Frauds! You keep meticulous account books, tithing on every nickel and dime you get, but on the meat of God’s Law, things like fairness and compassion and commitment—the absolute basics!—you carelessly take it or leave it. Careful bookkeeping is commendable, but the basics are required. Do you have any idea how silly you look, writing a life story that’s wrong from start to finish, nitpicking over commas and semicolons?
25-26“You’re hopeless, you religion scholars and Pharisees! Frauds! You buff the surface of your cups and bowls so they sparkle in the sun, while the insides are maggoty with your greed and gluttony. Stupid Pharisee! Scour the insides, and then the gleaming surface will mean something.
27-28“You’re hopeless, you religion scholars and Pharisees! Frauds! You’re like manicured grave plots, grass clipped and the flowers bright, but six feet down it’s all rotting bones and worm-eaten flesh. People look at you and think you’re saints, but beneath the skin you’re total frauds.
29-32“You’re hopeless, you religion scholars and Pharisees! Frauds! You build granite tombs for your prophets and marble monuments for your saints. And you say that if you had lived in the days of your ancestors, no blood would have been on your hands. You protest too much! You’re cut from the same cloth as those murderers, and daily add to the death count.
33-34“Snakes! Cold-blooded sneaks! Do you think you can worm your way out of this? Never have to pay the piper? It’s on account of people like you that I send prophets and wise guides and scholars generation after generation—and generation after generation you treat them like dirt, greeting them with lynch mobs, hounding them with abuse.
35-36“You can’t squirm out of this: Every drop of righteous blood ever spilled on this earth, beginning with the blood of that good man Abel right down to the blood of Zechariah, Barachiah’s son, whom you murdered at his prayers, is on your head. All this, I’m telling you, is coming down on you, on your generation.
37-39“Jerusalem! Jerusalem! Murderer of prophets! Killer of the ones who brought you God’s news! How often I’ve ached to embrace your children, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you wouldn’t let me. And now you’re so desolate, nothing but a ghost town. What is there left to say? Only this: I’m out of here soon. The next time you see me you’ll say, ‘Oh, God has blessed him! He’s come, bringing God’s rule!’”
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THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language copyright © 1993, 2002, 2018 by Eugene H. Peterson. All rights reserved. Used by permission of NavPress. Represented by Tyndale House Publishers.