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MATTHEW 23:33 — KING JAMES VERSION 0
Matt 23:32Matt 23:34
“Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?”
You serpents, you brood of vipers, how are you to escape being sentenced to hell? The serpents and brood of vipers — the same epithet John the Baptist applied to them (Matthew 3:7) — are the climactic indictment. The how are you to escape being sentenced to hell is the question that the seven woes have been building toward: the judgment that the Pharisees' hypocrisy has accumulated cannot be escaped.

Church Fathers on Matthew 23:33

He had said against the Scribes and Pharisees, that they were the children of those who killed the Prophets; now therefore He shews that they were like them in wickedness, and that was false that they said, 'If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the Prophets.'

Chrysostom · 4th century

He foretels, that as their fathers killed the Prophets, so they also should kill Christ, and the Apostles, and other holy men. As suppose you had a quarrel with some one, you might say to your adversary, Do to me what you are about to do; but you do not therein bid him do it, but shew him that you are aware of his manoeuvres. And in fact they went beyond the measure of their fathers; for they put to death only men, these crucified God.

Pseudo-Chrysostom · 5th century

They fill up the measure of their fathers' sins by their not believing in Christ. And the cause of their unbelief was, that they looked only to the letter and the body, and would understand nothing spiritual in them.

Origen · 3rd century
Read all 24 entries in the readerCatena Aurea · St. Thomas Aquinas, tr. J. H. Newman · public domain
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Matthew 23:33 — Community Reflections | HolyStudy