Matthew 23:1 then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, 2 “the teachers of religious law and the pharisees are the official interpreters of the law of moses. 3 so practice and obey whatever they tell you, but don’t follow their example. For they don’t practice what they teach.4 they crush people with unbearable religious demands and never lift a finger to ease the burden.

5 “everything they do is for show. On their arms they wear extra wide prayer boxes with scripture verses inside, and they wear robes with extra long tassels. 6 and they love to sit at the head table at banquets and in the seats of honor in the synagogues. 7 they love to receive respectful greetings as they walk in the marketplaces, and to be called ‘rabbi.’

13 “What sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you shut the door of the Kingdom of Heaven in people’s faces. You won’t go in yourselves, and you don’t let others enter either.

15 “What sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you cross land and sea to make one convert, and then you turn that person into twice the child of hell you yourselves are!

16 “Blind guides! What sorrow awaits you! For you say that it means nothing to swear ‘by God’s Temple,’ but that it is binding to swear ‘by the gold in the Temple.’

23 “What sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you are careful to tithe even the tiniest income from your herb gardens, but you ignore the more important aspects of the law—justice, mercy, and faith. You should tithe, yes, but do not neglect the more important things. 24 Blind guides! You strain your water, so you won’t accidentally swallow a gnat, but you swallow a camel!

25 “What sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you are so careful to clean the outside of the cup and the dish, but inside you are filthy—full of greed and self-indulgence!

27 “What sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs—beautiful on the outside but filled on the inside with dead people’s bones and all sorts of impurity.28 Outwardly you look like righteous people, but inwardly your hearts are filled with hypocrisy and lawlessness.

29 “What sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you build tombs for the prophets your ancestors killed, and you decorate the monuments of the godly people your ancestors destroyed. 30 Then you say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our ancestors, we would never have joined them in killing the prophets.’

31 “But in saying that, you testify against yourselves that you are indeed the descendants of those who murdered the prophets. 32 Go ahead and finish what your ancestors started. 33 Snakes! Sons of vipers! How will you escape the judgment of hell?

"Almost every article of our faith may be believed, every duty performed, and yet the love of God, that living heart of Christianity, may be entirely absent. The 'almost Christian' is the most dangerous of all conditions."

"Nothing is more fruitless than a Christian who lives in luxury and takes no thought for the salvation of the lost. This is the very hypocrisy against which our Lord thunders."

"God requires truth in the inward parts. No outward profession, however correct, can substitute for the entire surrender of the heart to the Lordship of Christ."