Matthew 23:26-36

New Life Version

²⁶ You blind proud religious law-keepers! Clean the inside of the cup and plate, then the outside will be clean also.

²⁷ “It is bad for you, teachers of the Law and proud religious law-keepers, you who pretend to be someone you are not! You are like graves that have been made white and look beautiful on the outside. But inside you are full of the bones of dead men and of every sinful thing. ²⁸ As men look at you, you seem to be good and right but inside you are full of sin. You pretend to be someone you are not.

²⁹ “It is bad for you, teachers of the Law and proud religious law-keepers, you who pretend to be someone you are not! You make buildings for the graves of the early preachers, and you make the graves beautiful of those who are right with God. ³⁰ You say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our early fathers, we would not have helped kill the early preachers.’ ³¹ In this way, you are showing that you are the sons of those who killed the early preachers. ³² You might as well finish what your early fathers did. ³³ You snakes! You family of snakes! How can you be kept from hell?

³⁴ “Because of this, I am going to keep on sending to you men who speak for God and wise men and teachers of the Law. Some of them you will kill and nail to a cross. Some of them you will beat in your places of worship. You will make it very hard for them as they go from city to city. ³⁵ Because of this, you will be guilty of the blood of all those right with God on the earth. It will be from the blood of Abel who was right with God to the blood of Zachariah son of Barachias. He was the one you killed between the house of God and the altar. ³⁶ For sure, I tell you, all these things will come on the people of this day.