THE NEW TESTAMENT
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
22:37. Jesus said to him: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart and with thy whole soul and with thy whole mind.
22:38. This is the greatest and the first commandment.
22:39. And the second is like to this: Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
22:40. On these two commandments dependeth the whole law and the prophets.
22:41. And the Pharisees being gathered together, Jesus asked them,
22:42. Saying: What think you of Christ? Whose son is he? They say to him: David's.
22:43. He saith to them: How then doth David in spirit call him Lord, saying:
22:44. The Lord said to my Lord: Sit on my right hand, until I make thy enemies thy footstool?
22:45. If David then call him Lord, how is he his son?
22:46. And no man was able to answer him a word: neither durst any man from that day forth ask him any more questions.
Matthew Chapter 23
Christ admonishes the people to follow the good doctrine, not the bad example of the scribes and Pharisees. He warns his disciples not to imitate their ambition and denounces divers woes against them for their hypocrisy and blindness.
23:1. Then Jesus spoke to the multitudes and to his disciples,
23:2. Saying: The scribes and the Pharisees have sitten on the chair of Moses.
23:3. All things therefore whatsoever they shall say to you, observe and do: but according to their works do ye not. For they say, and do not.
23:4. For they bind heavy and insupportable burdens and lay them on men's shoulders: but with a finger of their own they will not move them.
23:5. And all their works they do for to be seen of men. For they make their phylacteries broad and enlarge their fringes.
Phylacteries... that is, parchments, on which they wrote the ten commandments, and carried them on their foreheads before their eyes: which the Pharisees affected to wear broader than other men; so to seem more zealous for the law.
23:6. And they love the first places at feasts and the first chairs in the synagogues,
23:7. And salutations in the market place, and to be called by men, Rabbi.
23:8. But be not you called Rabbi. For one is your master: and all you are brethren.
23:9. And call none your father upon earth; for one is your father, who is in heaven.
Call none your father--Neither be ye called masters, etc... The meaning is that our Father in heaven is incomparably more to be regarded, than any father upon earth: and no master to be followed, who would lead us away from Christ. But this does not hinder but that we are by the law of God to have a due respect both for our parents and spiritual fathers, (1 Cor. 4. 23:15,) and for our masters and teachers.
23:10. Neither be ye called masters: for one is your master, Christ.
23:11. He that is the greatest among you shall be your servant.
23:12. And whosoever shall exalt himself shall be humbled: and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted.
23:13. But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you shut the kingdom of heaven against men: for you yourselves do not enter in and those that are going in, you suffer not to enter.
23:14. Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you devour the houses of widows, praying long prayers. For this you shall receive the greater judgment.
23:15. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you go round about the sea and the land to make one proselyte. And when he is made, you make him the child of hell twofold more than yourselves.
23:16. Woe to you, blind guides, that say, Whosoever shall swear by the temple, it is nothing; but he that shall swear by the gold of the temple is a debtor.
23:17. Ye foolish and blind: for whether is greater, the gold or the temple that sanctifieth the gold?
23:18. And whosoever shall swear by the altar, it is nothing; but whosoever shall swear by the gift that is upon it is a debtor.
23:19. Ye foolish and blind: for whether is greater, the gift or the altar that sanctifieth the gift?
23:20. He therefore that sweareth by the altar sweareth by it and by all things that are upon it.
23:21. And whosoever shall swear by the temple sweareth by it and by him that dwelleth in it.
23:22. And he that sweareth by heaven sweareth by the throne of God and by him that sitteth thereon.
23:23. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites; because you tithe mint and anise and cummin and have left the weightier things of the law: judgment and mercy and faith. These things you ought to have done and not to leave those undone.
23:24. Blind guides, who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel.
23:25. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites; because you make clean the outside of the cup and of the dish, but within you are full of rapine and uncleanness.
23:26. Thou blind Pharisee, first make clean the inside of the cup and of the dish, that the outside may become clean.