23
"You're hopeless, you religion scholars and Pharisees! Frauds! You keep meticulous account books, tithing on every nickel and dime you get, but on the meat of God's Law, things like fairness and compassion and commitment - the absolute basics! - you carelessly take it or leave it. Careful bookkeeping is commendable, but the basics are required.
24
Do you have any idea how silly you look, writing a life story that's wrong from start to finish, nitpicking over commas and semicolons?
25
"You're hopeless, you religion scholars and Pharisees! Frauds! You burnish the surface of your cups and bowls so they sparkle in the sun, while the insides are maggoty with your greed and gluttony.
26
Stupid Pharisee! Scour the insides, and then the gleaming surface will mean something.
27
"You're hopeless, you religion scholars and Pharisees! Frauds! You're like manicured grave plots, grass clipped and the flowers bright, but six feet down it's all rotting bones and worm-eaten flesh.
28
People look at you and think you're saints, but beneath the skin you're total frauds.
29
"You're hopeless, you religion scholars and Pharisees! Frauds! You build granite tombs for your prophets and marble monuments for your saints.
30
And you say that if you had lived in the days of your ancestors, no blood would have been on your hands.
31
You protest too much! You're cut from the same cloth as those murderers,
32
and daily add to the death count.