So whenever you give to the poor, don’t sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be applauded by people. Truly I tell you, they have their reward.
The Pharisee was standing and praying like this about himself: “God, I thank you that I’m not like other people #– #greedy, unrighteous, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.
Roam through the streets of Jerusalem. Investigate; search in her squares. If you find one person, any who acts justly, who pursues faithfulness, then I will forgive her.
I have been a fool; you forced it on me. You ought to have commended me, since I am not in any way inferior to those ‘super-apostles’, even though I am nothing.
Faithful people have vanished from the land; there is no one upright among the people. All of them wait in ambush to shed blood; they hunt each other with a net.
How sad for me! For I am like one who – when the summer fruit has been gathered after the gleaning of the grape harvest – finds no grape cluster to eat, no early fig, which I crave.