Matthew 23:13-16
Context23:13 “But woe to you, experts in the law 1 and you Pharisees, hypocrites! 2 You keep locking people out of the kingdom of heaven! 3 For you neither enter nor permit those trying to enter to go in.
23:14 [[EMPTY]] 423:15 “Woe to you, experts in the law 5 and you Pharisees, hypocrites! You cross land and sea to make one convert, 6 and when you get one, 7 you make him twice as much a child of hell 8 as yourselves!
23:16 “Woe to you, blind guides, who say, ‘Whoever swears by the temple is bound by nothing. 9 But whoever swears by the gold of the temple is bound by the oath.’
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
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.
9 tn Grk “Whoever swears by the temple, it is nothing.”