Matthew 23:27-30

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.’

[23:27]  ¹ tn Or “scribes.” See the note on the phrase “experts in the law” in 2:4.

[23:27]  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.

[23:29]  ³ tn Or “scribes.” See the note on the phrase “experts in the law” in 2:4.

[23:29]  ⁴ tn Grk “Because you.” Here ὅτι (Joti) has not been translated.

[23:29]  ⁵ tn Or perhaps “the monuments” (see L&N 7.75-76).

[23:30]  ⁵ tn Grk “fathers” (so also in v. 32).