26 Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean.
26 Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse first that which is within the cup and platter, that the outside of them may be clean also.
26 You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and the plate, that the outside also may be clean.
26 Stupid Pharisee! Scour the insides, and then the gleaming surface will mean something.
26 Blind Pharisee, first cleanse the inside of the cup and dish, that the outside of them may be clean also.
26 You blind Pharisee! First wash the inside of the cup and the dish, and then the outside will become clean, too.
41 But now as for what is inside you-be generous to the poor, and everything will be clean for you.
41 But rather give alms of such things as ye have; and, behold, all things are clean unto you.
41 But give as alms those things that are within, and behold, everything is clean for you.
41 Turn both your pockets and your hearts inside out and give generously to the poor; then your lives will be clean, not just your dishes and your hands.
41 But rather give alms of such things as you have; then indeed all things are clean to you.
41 So clean the inside by giving gifts to the poor, and you will be clean all over.
(Read Luke 11:37-54)
We should all look to our hearts, that they may be cleansed and new-created; and while we attend to the great things of the law and of the gospel, we must not neglect the smallest matter God has appointed. When any wait to catch something out of our mouths, that they may insnare us, O Lord, give us thy prudence and thy patience, and disappoint their evil purposes. Furnish us with such meekness and patience that we may glory in reproaches, for Christ's sake, and that thy Holy Spirit may rest upon us.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on Matthew 23:26
Commentary on Matthew 23:13-33
(Read Matthew 23:13-33)
The scribes and Pharisees were enemies to the gospel of Christ, and therefore to the salvation of the souls of men. It is bad to keep away from Christ ourselves, but worse also to keep others from him. Yet it is no new thing for the show and form of godliness to be made a cloak to the greatest enormities. But dissembled piety will be reckoned double iniquity. They were very busy to turn souls to be of their party. Not for the glory of God and the good of souls, but that they might have the credit and advantage of making converts. Gain being their godliness, by a thousand devices they made religion give way to their worldly interests. They were very strict and precise in smaller matters of the law, but careless and loose in weightier matters. It is not the scrupling a little sin that Christ here reproves; if it be a sin, though but a gnat, it must be strained out; but the doing that, and then swallowing a camel, or, committing a greater sin. While they would seem to be godly, they were neither sober nor righteous. We are really, what we are inwardly. Outward motives may keep the outside clean, while the inside is filthy; but if the heart and spirit be made new, there will be newness of life; here we must begin with ourselves. The righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees was like the ornaments of a grave, or dressing up a dead body, only for show. The deceitfulness of sinners' hearts appears in that they go down the streams of the sins of their own day, while they fancy that they should have opposed the sins of former days. We sometimes think, if we had lived when Christ was upon earth, that we should not have despised and rejected him, as men then did; yet Christ in his Spirit, in his word, in his ministers, is still no better treated. And it is just with God to give those up to their hearts' lusts, who obstinately persist in gratifying them. Christ gives men their true characters.