43
“What sorrow awaits you Pharisees! For you love to sit in the seats of honor in the synagogues and receive respectful greetings as you walk in the marketplaces.
44
Yes, what sorrow awaits you! For you are like hidden graves in a field. People walk over them without knowing the corruption they are stepping on.”
45
“Teacher,” said an expert in religious law, “you have insulted us, too, in what you just said.”
46
“Yes,” said Jesus, “what sorrow also awaits you experts in religious law! For you crush people with unbearable religious demands, and you never lift a finger to ease the burden.
47
What sorrow awaits you! For you build monuments for the prophets your own ancestors killed long ago.
48
But in fact, you stand as witnesses who agree with what your ancestors did. They killed the prophets, and you join in their crime by building the monuments!
49
This is what God in his wisdom said about you: ‘I will send prophets and apostles to them, but they will kill some and persecute the others.’
50
“As a result, this generation will be held responsible for the murder of all God’s prophets from the creation of the world—
51
from the murder of Abel to the murder of Zechariah, who was killed between the altar and the sanctuary. Yes, it will certainly be charged against this generation.
52
“What sorrow awaits you experts in religious law! For you remove the key to knowledge from the people. You don’t enter the Kingdom yourselves, and you prevent others from entering.”
53
As Jesus was leaving, the teachers of religious law and the Pharisees became hostile and tried to provoke him with many questions.