Matthew 23:25-39 ▼

25 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! you clean the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside they are full of extortion and iniquity.

26 Blind Pharisees! clean first the inside of the cup and of the dish, so that their outside may also be clean.

27 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you are like tombs painted white, which look beautiful from the outside, but inside are full of dead bones and all kinds of corruption.

28 Even so, from the outside you appear to men to be righteous, but from within you are full of iniquity and hypocrisy.

29 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you build the tombs of the prophets, and you decorate the graves of the righteous;

30 And you say, If we had been living in the days of our forefathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets.

31 Now you testify concerning yourselves, that you are the children of those who killed the prophets.

32 You also fill up the measure of your fathers.

33 O you serpents, and seed of scorpions! how can you flee from the judgment of hell?

34 Because of this, I am sending to you prophets and wise men and scribes; some of them you will kill and crucify; and some you will scourge in your synagogues, and pursue them from city to city;

35 So that all the blood of the righteous shed on the ground may come on you, from the blood of Abel the righteous down to the blood of Zachariah, son of Barachiah, whom you killed between the temple and the altar.

36 Truly I say to you, All of these things shall come upon this generation.

37 O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, murderess of the prophets, and stoner of those who are sent to her! how often I wanted to gather together your children, just as a hen gathers her chickens under her wings, and yet you would not!

38 Behold, your house will be left to you desolate.

39 For I say to you, from now you will not see me until you say, Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.