43aWoe to you Pharisees! For you love the best seats in the synagogues and greetings in the marketplaces.
44aWoe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!bFor you are like graves which are not seen, and the men who walk over them are not aware of them.”
45 Then one of the lawyers answered and said to Him, “Teacher, by saying these things You reproach us also.”
46 And He said, “Woe to you also, lawyers! aFor you load men with burdens hard to bear, and you yourselves do not touch the burdens with one of your fingers.
47aWoe to you! For you build the tombs of the prophets, and your fathers killed them.
48In fact, you bear witness that you approve the deeds of your fathers; for they indeed killed them, and you build their tombs.
49Therefore the wisdom of God also said, a‘I will send them prophets and apostles, and some of them they will kill and persecute,’
50that the blood of all the prophets which was shed from the foundation of the world may be required of this generation,
51afrom the blood of Abel to bthe blood of Zechariah who perished between the altar and the temple. Yes, I say to you, it shall be required of this generation.
52a“Woe to you lawyers! For you have taken away the key of knowledge. You did not enter in yourselves, and those who were entering in you hindered.”
531And as He said these things to them, the scribes and the Pharisees began to assail Him vehemently, and to cross-examine Him about many things,
54 lying in wait for Him,1 and aseeking to catch Him in something He might say,2 that they might accuse Him.
Thou reproachest us also (kai hmav ubrizeiv). Because the lawyers (scribes) were usually Pharisees. The verb ubrizw is an old one and common for outrageous treatment, a positive insult (so Luke 18:32; Matthew 22:6; Acts 14:5; I Thessalonians 2:2). So Jesus proceeds to give the lawyers three woes as he had done to the Pharisees.
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