Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you devour widows' houses and for a pretense you make long prayers; therefore you will receive the greater condemnation. The second woe (verse numbering varies in manuscripts): the financial exploitation of vulnerable widows paired with the religious performance of long prayers. The long prayers that are pretense are the theatrical piety that the Pharisees perform while profiting from the vulnerable. The greater condemnation communicates the compounded judgment: both the exploitation and the hypocrisy carry their respective penalties.

COMMUNITY REFLECTIONS

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