Matthew 23:13-15

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

² tn Grk “Woe to you…because you…” The causal particle ὅτι (Joti) has not been translated here for rhetorical effect (and so throughout this chapter).

³ tn Grk “because you are closing the kingdom of heaven before people.”

⁴ tc The most important mss (א B D L Z Θ Ë¹ 33 892* pc and several versional witnesses) do not have 23:14 “Woe to you experts in the law and you Pharisees, hypocrites! You devour widows’ property, and as a show you pray long prayers! Therefore you will receive a more severe punishment.” Part or all of the verse is contained (either after v. 12 or after v. 13) in W 0102 0107 ˹³ Ï and several versions, but it is almost certainly not original. The present translation follows NA²⁷ in omitting the verse number as well, a procedure also followed by a number of other modern translations. Note also that Mark 12:40 and Luke 20:47 are very similar in wording and are not disputed textually.

⁵ tn Or “scribes.” See the note on the phrase “experts in the law” in 2:4.

⁶ tn Or “one proselyte.”

⁷ tn Grk “when he becomes [one].”

⁸ tn Grk “a son of Gehenna.” Expressions constructed with υἱός (Juios) followed by a genitive of class or kind denote a person belonging to the class or kind specified by the following genitive (L&N 9.4). Thus the phrase here means “a person who belongs to hell.”

sn See the note on the word hell in 5:22.