Mat 23:27-28 | NETfull | STEP | “Woe to you, experts in the law and you Pharisees, hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs that look beautiful on the outside but inside are full of the bones of the dead and of everything unclean.

Matthew 23:27-28

27 “Woe to you, experts in the law ^{▼▼ Or “scribes.” See the note on the phrase “experts in the law” in 2:4.} and you Pharisees, hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs that look beautiful on the outside but inside are full of the bones of the dead and of everything unclean. ^{▼▼ This was an idiom for hypocrisy - just as the wall was painted on the outside but something different on the inside, so this person was not what he appeared or pretended to be (for discussion of a similar metaphor, see L&N 88.234; BDAG 1010 s.v. τοῖχος). See Deut 28:22; Ezek 13:10–16; Acts 23:3.} 28 In the same way, on the outside you look righteous to people, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.