23:1 - Jesus talked to his adherents and the assembled crowd
23:2 - Saying the scribes and the Pharisees are sitting where Moses would sit:
23:3 - You should all do what ever they tell you to do, but do not do what they do because they say and do not act.
23:4 - For they cause heavy, painful burdens to be borne by others, but will not lift a finger to help them.
23:5 - But all the things they do are to enhance their reputation among men; they widen their phylacteries, and embellish the borders of their robes.
23:6 - Extend your love to the uppermost rooms at feasts, and the chief seats in the synagogues
23:7 - To be greeted in the markets and called Rabbi, Rabbi.
23:8 - You are not called Rabbi; you have only one higher power, even Christ, and the rest of you are brothers.
23:9 - Don’t call any man your father on the earth: your Father is in heaven.
23:10 - And you will not be called masters. Only Christ is your Master.
23:11 - The one that is greatest among you will be your servant.
23:12 - Anyone who brags about himself will be punished, and anyone who is humble will be rewarded.
23:13 - Scribes,Pharisees,hypocrites the kingdom of heaven is not yours.
23:14 - Curses to you, scribed and Pharisees, in your hypocrisy! For you destroy the homes of women whose husbands are no longer there to care for them, and for bragging rights you state irrelevant words to God. Because of your evil deeds, you will be all the more condemned.
23:15 - Pitiful, hypocritical researchers and Pharisees! You search everywhere for a disciple and, when you have found him, you make him twice as bad as yourselves!
23:16 - Beware you who say that when someone swears by the temple by the temple it means nothing but when someone swears by the temple’s gold they are a debtor.
23:17 - To the dumb and blind: which do you like better; the gold or the temple that it’s built with?
23:18 - Believe in what you cannot see, not just what you can see.
23:19 - You who cannot see or understand: what is more holy? Is it the sacrifice or the altar on which the sacrifice is made?
23:20 - Who will swear by the altar, and by all things on it.
23:21 - Whoever swears by the temple shall also swear by the people that live in it.
23:22 - Him that swears himself to heaven, swears to the seat of God and God upon it.
23:23 - Scribes and Pharisees, you miserable hypocrites, you pay the tithe, with your mint and anise and cummin, but ignore the more important things, of the law, like judgment, mercy and faith; one is no good without the other.
23:24 - You carefully strain out a gnat yet eagerly ingest a whole camel.
23:25 - Shame on you, scribes and Pharisees. You don’t practice what you preach–you wash the outsides of the vessels you use for food but the insides are full of selfishness and sin.
23:26 - You blind Pharisee! Clean in the inside of the cup and dish so that they can be clean on the outside as well.
23:27 - After death, When the body white bone is beautiful after cleaning.
23:28 - You look good on the outside, but on the inside you’re full of hypocrisy and evil.
23:29 - Be careful, scribes and Pharisees, you are being false! You construct the monuments of the dead prophets, and dress the death chambers of the pure,
23:30 - In the blood of the prophets we would not partake in the day’s of our father’s.
23:31 - You are witnesses against yourselves, because you the the children of those who killed the prophets.
23:32 - Go ahead and fill up on the measure of your fathers.
23:33 - You snakes, you generation of poisonous snakes, how do you think that you can avoid hell’s damnation?
23:34 - Where do I need to send your prophets, wise men, and scribes; some will be killed and even crucified; some will run and hide in your synagogues, and become persecuted from city to city:
23:35 - That you will be responsible for all the good people who have been murdered, from Abel who was a good man to Zacharias, son of Barachias, who was killed between the temple and the altar.
23:36 - I say this to you truly, all of what I say shall occur during this generation.
23:37 - Oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you that kill the prophets, and stone those which I send to you, how often would I gather your children under my protection, as a hen would gather her chicks under her wing, and you would not allow me to!
23:38 - Look, your house is left to you destroyed.
23:39 - I’m telling you this, you will not see me after this until you say, He is blessed that comes in the name of the Lord.