Clean the Inside

37While he was speaking, a Pharisee asks him to dine with him; so he went in and reclined at the table.

38But the Pharisee, when he saw it, was astonished that he had not first washed before the meal.

39But the Lord said to him, “Now you Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and the dish, but your inside is full of greed and wickedness.”

40Fools! Did not the one who made the outside also make the inside?

41But give as alms the things that are within, and behold, everything is clean for you.

42But woe to you Pharisees, because you tithe mint and rue and every herb, and you pass by justice and the love of God. These things you ought to have done, without neglecting those things.

43Woe to you Pharisees, because you love the best seats in the synagogues and greetings in the marketplaces.

44Woe to you, because you are like unmarked tombs, and the men walking over them do not know it.

45Then one of the lawyers answered and said to him, “Teacher, in saying these things you insult us also.”

46But he said, “Woe also to you lawyers, because you load people with burdens hard to bear, and you yourselves do not touch the burdens with one of your fingers.”

47Woe to you, because you build the tombs of the prophets whom your fathers killed.

48So you are witnesses and approve of the deeds of your fathers, because they killed them, but you build their tombs.

49For this reason also the wisdom of God said, ‘I will send to them prophets and apostles, and some of them they will kill and persecute,’

50so that the blood of all the prophets, shed from the foundation of the world, may be required of this generation,

51from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who perished between the altar and the house. Yes, I tell you, it will be required from this generation.

52Woe to you lawyers, because you took away the key of knowledge; you yourselves did not enter, and you hindered those who were entering.

53And after he left there, the scribes and the Pharisees began to press him hard and to provoke him to speak about many things,

54lying in wait for him, to catch something from his mouth.