Jesus Condemns Hypocrites
“Alas for you, Teachers of the Law and Pharisees, hypocrites that you are! You clean the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside they are filled with the results of greed and self-indulgence. You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and the dish, so that the outside may become clean as well. You are like white-washed tombs, which indeed look fair outside, while inside they are filled with dead men’s bones and all kinds of filth. It is the same with you. Outwardly, and to others, you have the look of religious men, but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and sin. Alas for you, Teachers of the Law and Pharisees, hypocrites that you are! You build the tombs of the Prophets, and decorate the monuments of religious men, and say, ‘Had we been living in the days of our ancestors, we should have taken no part in their murder of the Prophets!’ By doing this you are furnishing evidence against yourselves that you are true children of the men who murdered the Prophets. Fill up the measure of your ancestors’ guilt. You serpents and brood of vipers! How can you escape being sentenced to the Pit? That is why I send you prophets, wise men, and Teachers of the Law, some of whom you will crucify and kill, and some of whom you will scourge in your Synagogues, and persecute from town to town; in order that upon your heads may fall every drop of innocent ‘blood spilt on earth,’ from the blood of innocent Abel down to that of Zechariah, Barachiah’s son, whom you murdered between the Temple and the altar. All this, I tell you, will come home to the present generation.
Jesus Laments The Fate Of Jerusalem
“Jerusalem! Jerusalem! she who slays the Prophets and stones the messengers sent to her—Oh, how often have I wished to gather your children round me, as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not come! Verily, your House is left to you desolate! For nevermore, I tell you, shall you see me, until you say—
“Blessed is The One Coming in the Name of the Lord!”
—Matthew.