When [Jesus] had finished speaking [to the crowds], a Pharisee invited Him to dinner. He came in and sat down. The Pharisee noticed with surprise that He had not begun by washing before the meal. But the Lord said to him, "You Pharisees! You clean the outside of cup and plate; but inside you there is nothing but greed and wickedness. You fools! Did not He Who made the outside make the inside too? But let what is in the cup be given in charity, and all is clean.

   Alas for you Pharisees! You pay tithes of mint and rue and every garden-herb, but have no care for justice and the love of God. It is these you should have practiced without neglecting the others . . ." In reply to this one of the lawyers said, "Master, when You say things like this You are insulting us too." Jesus rejoined: "Yes, you lawyers, it is no better with you! For you load men with intolerable burdens, and will not put a single finger to the load. Alas, you build the tombs of the prophets whom your fathers murdered, and so testify that you approve of the deeds your fathers did; they committed the murders and you provide the tombs.

   "This is why the Wisdom of God said, 'I will send them prophets and messengers: and some of these they will persecute and kill,' so that this generation will have to answer for the blood of all the prophets shed since the foundation of the world; from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah who perished between the altar and the sanctuary. I tell you, this generation will have to answer for it all. Alas for you lawyers! You have taken away the key of knowledge. You did not go in yourselves, and those who were on their way in, you stopped."

   After He had left the house, the lawyers and Pharisees began to assail him fiercely and to ply Him with a host of questions, laying snares to catch Him with His own words. [Jesus told His disciples:] "And if your hand or foot causes you to stumble and sin, cut it off and throw it away from you; it is better (more profitable and wholesome) for you to enter life maimed or lame than with two hands or two feet to be thrown into everlasting fire. If it is your eye that is your undoing, tear it out and fling it away; it is better to enter into life with one eye than to keep both eyes and be thrown into the fires of hell."

Taken from Luke 11, Matthew 18, The New English Bible, The Revised Standard
Version and The Amplified Bible. For free Lifescope book, write to Box 1575,
Carlsbad, NM 88221. Please send $1.00 for postage and handling.