Matthew 23:25

Matthew 23:25, in plain English

Jesus says they're like people who polish the outside of a cup while the inside is full of greed and selfishness. They look clean on the surface, but inside, they're a mess.

Why it's here

This image is so relatable. We all know what it's like to make things look good on the outside while hiding what's really going on inside.

Who's speaking

Jesus uses an everyday image that hits home for everyone listening.

Where it sits in the story

Have you ever cleaned a glass on the outside but not the inside? Nobody would drink from it. Jesus says that's what these leaders' lives look like to God.

The scholarly reading

The fifth woe uses the cup and dish metaphor: the Pharisees clean the outside (exōthen) while the inside (esōthen) is full of 'greed' (harpagēs, violent seizure) and 'self-indulgence' (akrasias, lack of self-control). External ritual purity masks internal moral corruption.

Language and setting

Pharisaic purity laws extensively regulated the cleaning of vessels (cf. Mark 7:4). Jesus subverts this literal practice into a metaphor for the disconnect between outward appearance and inner character.

Voice

Jesus pronounces the fifth woe using a domestic metaphor that every listener would immediately understand.

Significance

Jesus uses an image from daily life: a cup polished on the outside but filthy on the inside. It's a perfect picture of the Pharisees — clean exterior, corrupt interior.

23Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You pay tithes of mint, dill, and cumin. But you have disregarded the weightier matters of the law: justice, mercy, and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former.

24You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.

25Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence.

26Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, so that the outside may become clean as well.

27Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men’s bones and every kind of impurity.

Read all of Matthew 23 — Seven devastating woes crash down on the religious establishment. Jesus doesn't whisper his critique — he thunders it.