²⁴ Now they had been sent from the Pharisees.

The Law and the Kingdom of God

¹⁴ The Pharisees, who were lovers of money, heard all this, and they ridiculed him.^(A)

Nicodemus Visits Jesus

3 Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. ² He came to Jesus^[a] by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with that person.”^(A)

⁵³ When he went outside, the scribes and the Pharisees became hostile to him and began to interrogate him about many things,

³⁹ Then the Lord said to him, “Now you Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness.^{(A) 40} You fools! Did not the one who made the outside make the inside also? ⁴¹ So give as alms those things that are within and then everything will be clean for you.^(B)

⁴² “But woe to you Pharisees! For you tithe mint and rue and herbs of all kinds and neglect justice and the love of God; it is these you ought to have practiced, without neglecting the others.^{(C) 43} Woe to you Pharisees! For you love to have the seat of honor in the synagogues and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces.^{(D) 44} Woe to you! For you are like unmarked graves on which people unknowingly walk.”^(E)

³⁰ But the Pharisees and the experts in the law, not having been baptized by him, rejected God’s purpose for themselves.)^(A)

¹³ “But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you lock people out of the kingdom of heaven. For you do not go in yourselves, and when others are going in you stop them.^{[a](A) 15} Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you cross sea and land to make a single convert, and you make the new convert twice as much a child of hell^[b] as yourselves.

⁵ circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee;^{(A) 6} as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.

⁵ They have known for a long time, if they are willing to testify, that I have belonged to the strictest sect of our religion and lived as a Pharisee.^(A)

⁸ (The Sadducees say that there is no resurrection or angel or spirit, but the Pharisees acknowledge all three.)^(A)