Jesus rebuked the Jewish leaders for only pretending to be good.

Luke 11:37-54; Matthew 23:1-36; Mark 12:38-40

37 While Jesus finished saying those things, a Pharisee invited him to eat a meal with him. So Jesus went to his house and ate with him. 38 The Pharisee was surprised when he saw that Jesus did not follow the Pharisees’ ritual by washing his hands before eating. The Pharisees washed their hands in a certain way to be cleansed from anything that might have contaminated them. They were afraid that God might reject them if they had touched something unacceptable to God. 39 The Lord Jesus said to him, “You Pharisees are concerned about things that are outside your bodies, not with what is in your ◄inner beings/hearts► [MET]. You wash the outside of cups and dishes before you eat because you think that doing that will make you acceptable to God, but within yourselves you are very greedy and wicked. 40 You foolish people! God is concerned about things that are outside our bodies, but ◄he is certainly also concerned about our inner beings!/isn’t he also concerned about our hearts?► [RHQ] 41 Give money to those who are poor. Give according to what you know within your ◄inner beings/heart► that you should give. Then you will be surprised to realize that you will be acceptable to God without having to perform all those rituals about washing.

42 But there will be terrible punishment for you Pharisees! You give to God a tenth of all you produce, even the various herbs that you grow, but you do not remember that you must act justly toward others and love God! It is good to give a tenth of your income to God, but you ought to do these other things also! 43 There will be terrible punishment for you Pharisees, because you like to sit in the best seats in our worship places so that people will think highly of you, and you like people to greet you respectfully in the marketplaces. 44 There will be terrible punishment for you, because you are like ground where there is no marker to indicate that there is a grave underneath. People walk there, but they cannot see what is rotten down below [MET]! Similarly, people who see you do not realize how polluted you are within yourselves.”

45 One of those who taught the Jewish laws replied, “Teacher, by saying this you (sg) are criticizing us also!” 46 Jesus said, “It will be terrible also for you who teach the Jewish laws! You require people to obey many rules that are difficult to obey [MET]. That is like making them carry heavy burdens on their backs. But you yourselves do not obey the laws that you require others to obey. (OR, you do not do anything to help others to obey the laws.) 47 There will be terrible punishment for you! You decorate the tombs of the prophets whom your ancestors killed, but you do not live according to what the prophets taught. 48 So you are declaring that you approve of what your ancestors did. They killed the prophets, and you are not honoring the prophets! You just decorate their tombs! 49 So God, who is very wise [PRS], said, ‘I will send prophets and apostles to you Jews. You will kill some of them and cause some of them to suffer greatly. 50 As a result, I will consider that many of you people who have observed my Son’s ministry will be guilty [MTY] of murder, as if you had killed all the prophets that other people have killed, from the time I created the world, 51 starting from Adam’s son Cain killing his brother Abel and continuing until they killed the prophet Zechariah in the holy place between the altar and the temple.’ Yes, what I am saying is true [MTY]. God will punish you people who have observed my ministry, you people whom he considers to be guilty [MTY] for killing all those prophets! 52 There will be terrible punishment for you men who teach the Jewish laws, because you have not let people know God’s truth [MET]! It is as though you are taking away a key to a house. You are not going into the house yourselves, and you are not letting other people enter it, either.”

53 After Jesus finished saying those things, he left there. Then the men who taught the Jewish laws and the Pharisees began to act in a very hostile way toward him. They tried to make him say what he thought about many things. 54 They kept waiting for him to say something wrong for which they could accuse him.