²⁴ Then the Pharisees who had been sent

¹⁴ The Pharisees, who dearly loved their money, heard all this and scoffed at him.

3 There was a man named Nicodemus, a Jewish religious leader who was a Pharisee. ² After dark one evening, he came to speak with Jesus. “Rabbi,” he said, “we all know that God has sent you to teach us. Your miraculous signs are evidence that God is with you.”

⁵³ As Jesus was leaving, the teachers of religious law and the Pharisees became hostile and tried to provoke him with many questions.

³⁹ Then the Lord said to him, “You Pharisees are so careful to clean the outside of the cup and the dish, but inside you are filthy—full of greed and wickedness! ⁴⁰ Fools! Didn’t God make the inside as well as the outside? ⁴¹ So clean the inside by giving gifts to the poor, and you will be clean all over.

⁴² “What sorrow awaits you Pharisees! For you are careful to tithe even the tiniest income from your herb gardens,^[a] but you ignore justice and the love of God. You should tithe, yes, but do not neglect the more important things.

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.”

³⁰ But the Pharisees and experts in religious law rejected God’s plan for them, for they had refused John’s baptism.

¹³ “What sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you shut the door of the Kingdom of Heaven in people’s faces. You won’t go in yourselves, and you don’t let others enter either.^[a]

¹⁵ “What sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you cross land and sea to make one convert, and then you turn that person into twice the child of hell^[b] you yourselves are!

⁵ I was circumcised when I was eight days old. I am a pure-blooded citizen of Israel and a member of the tribe of Benjamin—a real Hebrew if there ever was one! I was a member of the Pharisees, who demand the strictest obedience to the Jewish law. ⁶ I was so zealous that I harshly persecuted the church. And as for righteousness, I obeyed the law without fault.

⁵ If they would admit it, they know that I have been a member of the Pharisees, the strictest sect of our religion.

⁸ for the Sadducees say there is no resurrection or angels or spirits, but the Pharisees believe in all of these.