An oracle concerning the animals of the Negeb. Through a land of trouble and distress, of lioness and roaring lion, of viper and flying serpent, they carry their riches on the backs of donkeys and their treasures on the humps of camels to a people that cannot profit them.
But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming for his baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?
When the local people saw the creature hanging from his hand, they said to one another, “This man must be a murderer; though he has escaped from the sea, Justice has not allowed him to live.”
Are they ministers of Christ? I am talking like a madman—I am a better one: with far greater labors, far more imprisonments, with countless floggings, and often near death.