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You serpents, you offspring of vipers, how will you escape the judgment of Gehenna?
Verse Takeaways
1
The Ultimate Rebuke
Commentators agree this is the harshest language Jesus uses in the Gospels. He calls the religious leaders "serpents" and "offspring of vipers" to diagnose their character. Scholars explain these terms signify a deceptive, poisonous, and malicious nature hidden beneath a pious exterior, linking their evil to that of their ancestors who killed the prophets.
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Matthew
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10
18th Century
Presbyterian
You serpents. This name is given to them because they pretended to be pious and very devoted to God, but were secretly evil. In their hear…
Ye serpents, ye offspring of vipers (οφεις γεννηματα εχιδνων). These blistering words come as a climax and remind one of the Bapti…
19th Century
Anglican
You generation of vipers — Better, as in Matthew 3:7, brood, or progeny of vipers. The word of rebuke that had c…
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Baptist
This is Christ's utterance, let me remind you. Our modern preachers would not talk like this, even to scribes and Pharisees who were crucifying Chr…
See comments on 3:7 and 12:34 for the epithets. The transition from the preceding verse is clear: if the teachers of the law and Pharisees are fill…
16th Century
Protestant
Offspring of vipers. After demonstrating that the scribes are not only base enemies of sound doctrine and wicked corrupters of th…
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17th Century
Reformed Baptist
You servants, you generation of vipers. The latter of these names, John the Baptist calls the Sadducees and Pharisees by …
The scribes and Pharisees were enemies of the gospel of Christ, and therefore of the salvation of people's souls. It is bad to keep away from Chris…
13th Century
Catholic
After He instructed the disciples and the multitudes about the caution they should have regarding the Jews' doctrine, He now directs His words to t…
