4 Have the workers of evil no knowledge? they take my people for food, as they would take bread; they make no prayer to God.
For my people are foolish, they have no knowledge of me; they are evil-minded children, without sense, all of them: they are wise in evil-doing, but have no knowledge of doing good.
When evil-doers, even my haters, came on me to put an end to me, they were broken and put to shame.
When its branches are dry they will be broken off; the women will come and put fire to them: for it is a foolish people; for this cause he who made them will have no mercy on them, and he whose work they are will not have pity on them.
Let your wrath be let loose on the nations which have no knowledge of you, and on the families who give no worship to your name: for they have made a meal of Jacob, truly they have made a meal of him and put an end to him and made his fields a waste.
You foolish ones and blind: which is greater, the gold, or the Temple which makes the gold holy? And, Whoever takes an oath by the altar, it is nothing; but whoever takes an oath by the offering which is on it, he is responsible. You blind ones: which is greater, the offering, or the altar which makes the offering holy? He, then, who takes an oath by the altar, takes it by the altar and by all things on it. And he who takes an oath by the Temple, takes it by the Temple and by him whose house it is. And he who takes an oath by heaven, takes it by the seat of God, and by him who is seated on it. A curse is on you, scribes and Pharisees, false ones! for you make men give a tenth of all sorts of sweet-smelling plants, but you give no thought to the more important things of the law, righteousness, and mercy, and faith; but it is right for you to do these, and not to let the others be undone. You blind guides, who take out a fly from your drink, but make no trouble over a camel. A curse is on you, scribes and Pharisees, false ones! for you make clean the outside of the cup and of the plate, but inside they are full of violent behaviour and uncontrolled desire. You blind Pharisee, first make clean the inside of the cup and of the plate, so that the outside may become equally clean. A curse is on you, scribes and Pharisees, false ones! for you are like the resting-places of the dead, which are made white, and seem beautiful on the outside, but inside are full of dead men's bones and of all unclean things. Even so you seem to men to be full of righteousness, but inside you are all false and full of wrongdoing. A curse is on you, scribes and Pharisees, false ones! because you put up buildings for housing the dead bodies of the prophets, and make fair the last resting-places of good men, and say, If we had been living in the days of our fathers, we would not have taken part with them in the blood of the prophets. So that you are witnesses against yourselves that you are the sons of those who put the prophets to death. Make full, then, the measure of your fathers. You snakes, offspring of snakes, how will you be kept from the punishment of hell? For this reason, I send you prophets, and wise men, and scribes: some of them you will put to death and put on the cross, and to some of them you will give blows in your Synagogues, driving them from town to town; So that on you may come all the blood of the upright on the earth, from the blood of upright Abel to the blood of Zachariah, son of Barachiah, whom you put to death between the Temple and the altar. Truly I say to you, All these things will come on this generation. O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, putting to death the prophets, and stoning those who are sent to her! Again and again would I have taken your children to myself as a bird takes her young ones under her wings, and you would not! See, your house is made waste. For I say to you, You will not see me from this time till you say, A blessing on him who comes in the name of the Lord.
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Commentary on Psalms 53 Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
PSALM 53
Ps 53:1-6. Upon Mahalath—(See on Ps 88:1, title). Why this repetition of the fourteenth Psalm is given we do not know.
1-4. with few verbal changes, correspond with Ps 14:1-4.
5. Instead of assurances of God's presence with the pious, and a complaint of the wicked, Ps 14:5, 6 portrays the ruin of the latter, whose "bones" even "are scattered" (compare Ps 141:7), and who are put to shame as contemptuously rejected of God.