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.
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.