Turning now to the crowds and to his disciples, Jesus warns about the scribes and the Pharisees. Since these teach God’s Law, having “seated themselves in the seat of Moses,” Jesus urges: “All the things they tell you, do and observe.” But he adds: “Do not do according to their deeds, for they say but do not perform.”

They are hypocrites, and Jesus denounces them in much the same language that he did while dining in the house of a Pharisee months earlier. “All the works they do,” he says, “they do to be viewed by men.” And he provides examples, noting:

“They broaden the scripture-containing cases that they wear as safeguards.” These relatively small cases, worn on the forehead or on the arm, contain four portions of the Law: Exodus 13:1-10, 11-16; and Deuteronomy 6:4-9; 11:13-21. But the Pharisees increase the size of these cases to give the impression that they are zealous about the Law.

Jesus continues that they “enlarge the fringes of their garments.” At Numbers 15:38-40 the Israelites are commanded to make fringes on their garments, but the Pharisees make theirs larger than anyone else does. Everything is done for show! “They like the most prominent place,” Jesus declares.

Sadly, his own disciples have been affected by this desire for prominence. So he counsels: “But you, do not you be called Rabbi, for one is your teacher, whereas all you are brothers. Moreover, do not call anyone your father on earth, for one is your Father, the heavenly One. Neither be called ‘leaders,’ for your Leader is one, the Christ.” The disciples must rid themselves of the desire to be number one! “The greatest one among you must be your minister,” Jesus admonishes.

He next pronounces a series of woes on the scribes and the Pharisees, repeatedly calling them hypocrites. They “shut up the kingdom of the heavens before men,” he says, and “they are the ones devouring the houses of the widows and for a pretext making long prayers.”

“Woe to you, blind guides,” Jesus says. He condemns the Pharisees’ lack of spiritual values, evidenced by the arbitrary distinctions they make. For example, they say, ‘It is nothing if anyone swears by the temple, but one is under obligation if he swears by the gold of the temple.’ By their putting more emphasis on the gold of the temple than on the spiritual value of that place of worship, they reveal their moral blindness.

Then, as he did earlier, Jesus condemns the Pharisees for neglecting “the weightier matters of the Law, namely, justice and mercy and faithfulness” while giving great attention to paying a tithe, or tenth part, of insignificant herbs.

Jesus calls the Pharisees “blind guides, who strain out the gnat but gulp down the camel!” They strain a gnat from their wine not simply because it is an insect but because it is ceremonially unclean. Yet, their disregarding the weightier matters of the Law is comparable to swallowing a camel, also a ceremonially unclean animal.

Now he continues his castigation of the scribes and the Pharisees.

Three more times he exclaims: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!” First, he proclaims woe on them because they cleanse “the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside they are full of plunder and immoderateness.” So he admonishes: “Cleanse first the inside of the cup and of the dish, that the outside of it also may become clean.”

Next he pronounces woe on the scribes and the Pharisees for the inner rottenness and putrefaction that they attempt to hide by outward piety. “You resemble whitewashed graves,” he says, “which outwardly indeed appear beautiful but inside are full of dead men’s bones and of every sort of uncleanness.”

Finally, their hypocrisy is manifest in their willingness to build tombs for the prophets and decorate them to draw attention to their own deeds of charity. Yet, as Jesus reveals, they “are sons of those who murdered the prophets.” Indeed, anyone who dares expose their hypocrisy is in danger!

Going on, Jesus utters his strongest words of denunciation. “Serpents, offspring of vipers,” he says, “how are you to flee from the judgment of Gehenna?” Gehenna is the valley used as the garbage dump of Jerusalem. So Jesus is saying that for pursuing their wicked course, the scribes and the Pharisees will suffer everlasting destruction.

Regarding those whom he sends forth as his representatives, Jesus says: “Some of them you will kill and impale, and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues and persecute from city to city; that there may come upon you all the righteous blood spilled on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah son of Barachiah [called Jehoiada in Second Chronicles], whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar. Truly I say to you, All these things will come upon this generation.”

Because Zechariah chastised Israel’s leaders, “they conspired against him and pelted him with stones at the king’s commandment in the courtyard of Jehovah’s house.” But, as Jesus foretells, Israel will pay for all such righteous blood spilled. They pay 37 years later, in 70 C.E., when the Roman armies destroy Jerusalem and over a million Jews perish.