The Great Gospel of John
Volume 7
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
The Lord and his adversary. Gospel of John, Chapter 9
- Chapter 200 -
The Lord critisizes the Pharisees.
Such statements from the people were like a stench in the nose of the Pharisees. For this reason, a few orators stood up to speak some soothing words to the excited people by which they did not fail to make Me and My teaching suspicious and to misrepresent it. They accused Me of great improper presumptions and said that I had abolished the law of Moses when I wanted that from now on a child could no longer honor its parents by greeting them with the word father or mother since Moses explicitly gave the commandment that one should honor his father and mother.
2
By that, the people became uncertain and expressed their doubts among each other and some among them said: "Well, in fact you cannot disagree with the Pharisees and scribes. It seems that in His enthusiasm He went too far."
3
Then the more moderate Pharisee came to Me and said: "Do You hear now what the people is saying? You made us very suspicious in front of the people, so that they raised their voice against us. But they noticed that You went too far by going against Moses. That is why it was the highest time to make the people change their mind. Now they see their mistake, and my question is: what do You want to do now?"
4
I said: "I surely do not have to ask you what I further have to do or to say. When John was teaching the people and exhorted them to do penance, you also behaved like this in order to uphold your worldly justice, but you did no penance and you also withheld the people from it by your hypocritical words, what you also have done just now. But by this you also will bring even more damnation upon yourselves. The One who has the power to save you or to bring you to ruin is saying this to you, depending on what you want to achieve with your way of doing.
5
You fools of heart and mind. When you yourselves call God your Father and you say that one should not defame the name of God, how can you then put God equal to man? What is the difference when you call God your Father but also the one who procreated you in the womb of a woman?
6
You want to be scribes and you do not even know anymore the difference between the original Hebrew words 'jeoua' and 'jeoutza'. The first mentioned means 'Father' and the second 'procreator'. And when this is so and not otherwise, then who else except you have brought the people into the greatest confusion?
7
Therefore, woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, foolish hypocrites! By your great laziness, stupidity and wickedness you always lock up the true Kingdom of Heaven for those who want to come into it. Truly, you also will not come into it and no one else who will behave like you now!
8
You yourselves will not come into God's Kingdom of truth and life, and those who still want to come into it one way or another, you do not allow to go in, but you persecute and curse them and are blocking in this way all ways to the light and eternal life. Therefore also, even more damnation will be your share!
9
Still for another reason I say: woe, you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! You devour the possessions of the widows and orphans and pretend that you will pronounce long and strong prayers for it. Also for this, even more damnation will rest upon you!
10
Still more reasons to say woe, you scribes and Pharisees, terrible hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to change somewhere a gentile into a Jew. When he has become one, you soon make of him a child of Hell, twice as worse as you yourselves. Also for this you will reap your reward in Hell!
11
Again woe, you blind leaders who say: when one swears by the temple, it means nothing, but the one who takes a false oath by the gold of the temple, is guilty and punishable. O fools and blind ones! Which is greater and more: the temple by which the gold is sanctified or the useless gold in itself?
12
Also, this is how you speak and teach: if someone swears by the altar, it is not important, but if someone takes falsely an oath by the offering that is laying on the altar, he is guilty and punishable. O fools and blind ones! Which is greater here, the offering or the altar that sanctifies the offering!?
13
Is it then not true and right that everyone who swears by the altar, also swears by everything that is laying on the altar? And the one who swears by the temple, also swears by everything that is in the temple. And finally, the one who swears by Heaven swears certainly also by God's throne and consequently also by the One who sits upon it - or more precisely: rests and rules upon it!
14
Again woe, you scribes and Pharisees, great hypocrites, who impose according to the old law the tithes of mint, the dill and cumin, because this is to your advantage, but you do not care about the most difficult and the most important, namely a just and true jurisdiction, faith and mercy, in order that everyone would receive complete justice before you. With this I do not say that one should not do the first mentioned, but what I say is that one should not - like you are doing now - refrain from doing the second and which is much more important!
15
O total blind leaders, you are sifting out mosquitoes but you swallow camels! Woe, you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites in all aspects, who keep the sacred cups and plates clean from the outside but who do not care a bit when these vessels are full of robbery and excessive gluttony from the inside. O, you blind Pharisee, clean first the inside of the cup and the plate, so that subsequently also the outside will truthfully become clean!
16
And much more woe over you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, all of you! You are like whitewashed graves. These are also shining clean from the outside, but inside there are full of dead man's bones and repulsive dirt. Such graves are precisely showing who you are. You also make a pious impression outwardly on the people, but from the inside you are full of hypocrisy and all kinds of vices!
17
And manifold woe to you scribes and Pharisees, complete hypocrites! You are building now mortuary monuments for the old prophets and decorate the graves of those righteous ones and you lament as follows: 'Oh, if we would have been in the world at the time of our fathers we would not be guilty of their innocent blood that was shed.' But by this you give evidence that you are true children of those who have killed the prophets. Well then, make full with Me also, the evil measure of your fathers, just like you have already made the measure full with Zacharias and with John. Serpents, brood of vipers, how will you escape the damnation of Hell when you behave like this!?"