23:15 “Woe to you, experts in the law 2 and you Pharisees, hypocrites! You cross land and sea to make one convert, 3 and when you get one, 4 you make him twice as much a child of hell 5 as yourselves!
23:27 “Woe to you, experts in the law 6 and you Pharisees, hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs that look beautiful on the outside but inside are full of the bones of the dead and of everything unclean. 7
23:29 “Woe to you, experts in the law 8 and you Pharisees, hypocrites! You 9 build tombs for the prophets and decorate the graves 10 of the righteous.
9:14 So the Lord cut off Israel’s head and tail,
both the shoots and stalk 11 in one day.
9:15 The leaders and the highly respected people 12 are the head,
the prophets who teach lies are the tail.
33:14 Sinners are afraid in Zion;
panic 13 grips the godless. 14
They say, 15 ‘Who among us can coexist with destructive fire?
Who among us can coexist with unquenchable 16 fire?’
11:17 Woe to the worthless shepherd
who abandons the flock!
May a sword fall on his arm and his right eye!
May his arm wither completely away,
and his right eye become completely blind!”
1 tc The most important
2 tn Or “scribes.” See the note on the phrase “experts in the law” in 2:4.
3 tn Or “one proselyte.”
4 tn Grk “when he becomes [one].”
5 tn Grk “a son of Gehenna.” Expressions constructed with υἱός (Juios) followed by a genitive of class or kind denote a person belonging to the class or kind specified by the following genitive (L&N 9.4). Thus the phrase here means “a person who belongs to hell.”
6 tn Or “scribes.” See the note on the phrase “experts in the law” in 2:4.
7 sn This was an idiom for hypocrisy – just as the wall was painted on the outside but something different on the inside, so this person was not what he appeared or pretended to be (for discussion of a similar metaphor, see L&N 88.234; BDAG 1010 s.v. τοῖχος). See Deut 28:22; Ezek 13:10-16; Acts 23:3.
8 tn Or “scribes.” See the note on the phrase “experts in the law” in 2:4.
9 tn Grk “Because you.” Here ὅτι (Joti) has not been translated.
10 tn Or perhaps “the monuments” (see L&N 7.75-76).
11 sn The metaphor in this line is that of a reed being cut down.
12 tn Heb “the elder and the one lifted up with respect to the face.” For another example of the Hebrew idiom, see 2 Kgs 5:1.
13 tn Or “trembling” (ASV, NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV); NLT “shake with fear.”
14 tn Or “the defiled”; TEV “The sinful people of Zion”; NLT “The sinners in Jerusalem.”
15 tn The words “they say” are supplied in the translation for clarification.
16 tn Or “perpetual”; or “everlasting” (KJV, ASV, NAB, NIV, NRSV).
17 tn Or “seats of honor.” The term here is plural and is not a reference only to the lead “seat of Moses” in the synagogue, but includes the front seats near the ark.
18 sn See the note on synagogues in 4:15.
19 tn Grk “and the greetings.”
20 tc Most
21 tn Grk “men.” This is a generic use of ἄνθρωπος (anqrwpo"), referring to both males and females.
22 sn In Judaism to come into contact with the dead or what is associated with them, even without knowing it, makes one unclean (Num 19:11-22; Lev 21:1-3; Mishnah, m. Demai 2:3). To Pharisees, who would have been so sensitive about contracting ceremonial uncleanness, it would have been quite a stinging rebuke to be told they caused it.