For you remember, brethren, our labour and toil: working night and day, lest we should be chargeable to any of you, we preached among you the gospel of God.10 You are witnesses, and God also, how holily, and justly, and without blame, we have been to you that have believed:11 As you know in what manner, entreating and comforting you, (as a father doth his children,)12 We testified to every one of you, that you would walk worthy of God, who hath called you unto his kingdom and glory.13 Therefore, we also give thanks to God without ceasing: because, that when you had received of us the word of the hearing of God, you received it not as the word of men, but (as it is indeed) the word of God, who worketh in you that have believed.
Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy face?8 If I ascend into heaven, thou art there: if I descend into hell, thou art present.9 If I take my wings early in the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea:10 Even there also shall thy hand lead me: and thy right hand shall hold me.11 And I said: Perhaps darkness shall cover me: and night shall be my light in my pleasures.12 But darkness shall not be dark to thee, and night shall be light as day: the darkness thereof, and the light thereof are alike to thee.
Since, therefore, all things are seen and heard, let us fear him and abandon the abominable lusts that spawn evil works, in order that we may be shielded by his mercy from the coming judgments. For where can any of us escape from his mighty hand? For the Scripture says somewhere, "Where shall I go, and where shall I be hidden from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I depart to the ends of the earth, there is your right hand; if I take my bed in the depths, there is your Spirit." Where, then, can one go, or where can one flee from him who embraces the universe?
Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites; because you are like to whited sepulchres, which outwardly appear to men beautiful, but within are full of dead men’s bones, and of all filthiness.†28 So you also outwardly indeed appear to men just; but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.29 Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites; that build the sepulchres of the prophets, and adorn the monuments of the just,30 And say: If we had been in the days of our Fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets.31 Wherefore you are witnesses against yourselves, that you are the sons of them that killed the prophets.32 Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers.
As above they are said to be full of extortion and excess, so here they are full of hypocrisy and iniquity, and are likened to dead men’s bones, and all uncleanness.
For all feigned righteousness is dead, forasmuch as it is not done for God’s sake; yea, rather it is no righteousness at all, any more than a dead man is a man, or an actor who represents any character is the man whom he represents. There is therefore within them so much of bones and uncleanness as are the good things that they wickedly pretend to. And they seem righteous outwardly, not in the eyes of such as the Scripture calls Gods, (Ps. 82:6.) but of such only as die like men.
Without just cause He seems to utter denunciations against those who build the sepulchres of the Prophets; for so far what they did was praiseworthy; how then do they deserve this woe?
And in the prophetic writings, the historical sense is the body, the spiritual meaning is the soul; the sepulchres are the letter and books themselves of Scripture. They then who attend only to the historical meaning, honour the bodies of the Prophets, and set in the letter as in a sepulchre; and are called Pharisees, i. e. ‘cut off,’ as it were cutting off the soul of the Prophets from their body.
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.
About CSB. A personal translation of the New Testament, rendered directly from the public-domain Greek in a literary style — not a scholarly critical edition, and not for liturgical or doctrinal authority. It is one reader's work, offered for enjoyment; where it matters, weigh it against an established translation. (Placeholder text — final wording to come.)