Matthew 23:16
New American Bible (Revised Edition)
16 [a](A)“Woe to you, blind guides, who say, ‘If one swears by the temple, it means nothing, but if one swears by the gold of the temple, one is obligated.’
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- 23:16–22 An attack on the casuistry that declared some oaths binding (one is obligated) and others not (it means nothing) and held the binding oath to be the one made by something of lesser value (the gold; the gift on the altar). Such teaching, which inverts the order of values, reveals the teachers to be blind guides; cf. Mt 15:14. Since the Matthean Jesus forbids all oaths to his disciples (Mt 5:33–37), this woe does not set up a standard for Christian moral conduct, but ridicules the Pharisees on their own terms.
Matthew 23:19
New American Bible (Revised Edition)
19 You blind ones, which is greater, the gift, or the altar that makes the gift sacred?
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Matthew 23:24
New American Bible (Revised Edition)
24 [a](A)Blind guides, who strain out the gnat and swallow the camel!
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- 23:24 Cf. Lv 11:41–45 that forbids the eating of any “swarming creature.” The Pharisees’ scrupulosity about minor matters and neglect of greater ones (Mt 23:23) is further brought out by this contrast between straining liquids that might contain a tiny “swarming creature” and yet swallowing the camel. The latter was one of the unclean animals forbidden by the law (Lv 11:4), but it is hardly possible that the scribes and Pharisees are being denounced as guilty of so gross a violation of the food laws. To swallow the camel is only a hyperbolic way of speaking of their neglect of what is important.
Luke 6:39
New American Bible (Revised Edition)
39 And he told them a parable, “Can a blind person guide a blind person? Will not both fall into a pit?(A)
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John 9:40
New American Bible (Revised Edition)
40 Some of the Pharisees who were with him heard this and said to him, “Surely we are not also blind, are we?”(A)
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