23:27 “Woe to you, experts in the law 1 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. 2 23:28 In the same way, on the outside you look righteous to people, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.
23:29 “Woe to you, experts in the law 3 and you Pharisees, hypocrites! You 4 build tombs for the prophets and decorate the graves 5 of the righteous. 23:30 And you say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our ancestors, 6 we would not have participated with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’
1 tn Or “scribes.” See the note on the phrase “experts in the law” in 2:4.
2 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.
3 tn Or “scribes.” See the note on the phrase “experts in the law” in 2:4.
4 tn Grk “Because you.” Here ὅτι (Joti) has not been translated.
5 tn Or perhaps “the monuments” (see L&N 7.75-76).
5 tn Grk “fathers” (so also in v. 32).