Riverside(i)
28 He said, "Blessed are they who hear the word of God and keep it!"
29 As the crowds were thronging about him, he began and said, "This generation is an evil generation. It seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah.
30 For just as Jonah became a sign to the Ninevites so the Son of Man will be to this generation.
31 The queen of the South will rise in the judgment with the men of this generation and will condemn them. For she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and more than a Solomon is here.
32 The men of Nineveh will stand up in the judgment with this generation and will condemn it. For they repented at the proclamation of Jonah, and indeed more than a Jonah is here.
33 "No one lights a lamp and places it in a cellar or under the peck-measure, but on the stand, so that those who come in may see the light.
34 The lamp of the body is the eye. When your eye is clear the whole body is lighted. But when it is bad, your body is dark.
35 Make sure that the light that is in you is not darkness.
36 If your body is all lighted up, not having any part dark, it will be all lighted as when the lamp lights you by its brilliance."
37 During his talk a Pharisee kept asking him to dine with him. He went in and reclined at table.
38 The Pharisee, seeing this, wondered that he had not first washed before dinner.
39 The Master said to him, "Now you Pharisees cleanse the outside of the cup and the platter, but the inside of you is full of rapacity and wickedness.
40 You foolish men, did not he who made the outside make the inside too?
41 But give the things inside as gifts of mercy and at once all will be clean for you.
42 But alas for you, Pharisees! Because you tithe mint, and rue, and every herb, and pass by justice and the love of God. These things you ought to have practiced, without omitting the others.
43 Alas for you, Pharisees! for you love the first seats in the synagogues and greetings in the market-places.
44 Alas for you! for you are like unmarked graves. The men who walk over them do not know it."
45 One of the lawyers answered him, "Teacher, in saying this you treat us roughly too."
46 He said, "Alas for you lawyers also! for you burden men with burdens hard to bear, and you yourselves do not touch the burdens with one of your fingers.
47 Alas for you! for you build the tombs of the prophets, but your fathers killed them.
48 So you are witnesses and consent to the deeds of your fathers, for they killed them and you build their tombs.
49 Therefore also the Wisdom of God said, 'I will send to them prophets and apostles, and some of them they will kill and some they will persecute.'
50 So the blood of all the prophets which has been shed from the foundation of the world will be required of this generation —
51 from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zachariah who perished between the altar and the House. Yes, I tell you, it will be required of this generation.
52 Alas for you lawyers! because you have taken away the key of knowledge. You yourselves have not entered and you have prevented those who were entering."
53 After he went away from there, the scribes and the Pharisees began to press upon him angrily and cross-question him on many points,
54 laying traps to catch something from his mouth.