Some Pharisees who had been sent asked John:
Pharisees, you are blind! First make the inside of the cup clean, and then the outside of the cup can be truly clean.
When Jesus left, the teachers of the law and the Pharisees began to give him trouble, asking him questions about many things,
The Pharisees, who loved money, were listening to all these things and made fun of Jesus.
But the Pharisees and experts on the law refused to accept God’s plan for themselves; they did not let John baptize them.)
John told them in the words of the prophet Isaiah: “I am the voice of one calling out in the desert: ‘Make the road straight for the Lord.’ ”
“If you are not the Christ or Elijah or the Prophet, why do you baptize people?”
(The Sadducees do not believe in angels or spirits or that people will rise from the dead. But the Pharisees believe in them all.)
They have known me for a long time. If they want to, they can tell you that I was a good Pharisee. And the Pharisees obey the laws of my tradition more carefully than any other group.
