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Matthew 23:14

Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you devour widows' houses, and for a pretense make long prayer: therefore you shall receive the greater condemnation.

All Commentaries on Matthew 23:14 Go To Matthew 23

John Chrysostom

AD 407

After this, he admonishes them for their gluttony. And it is most grievous that they indulged their own bellies not from rich men’s houses but from the poor. Thereby they aggravated the poverty of the poor, which they should have relieved. They did not merely eat. They “devoured.” The manner of their false piety in overreaching was even yet more grievous: “for a pretense you make long prayers.”It is just for anyone who does evil to receive just retribution. But in this case we have one who is using prayers as a cloak for his own wickedness. And he is deriving even the reason for his avarice as godliness. Sure he is justly liable to a far more grievous punishment. So why did God not stop this and depose them? Because the time had not yet come. He leaves them time for repentance for a while. But by his sayings he tries to avert his own disciples being similarly deceived or to be drawn to emulate these men because of the dignity of their positions. Earlier he said, “Observe whatever they tell you but not what they do.” For they do many things amiss. The Gospel of Matthew, Homily

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Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation - 2 Peter 1:20