Mark 12:40

Plain English Version

But they do bad things. They trick old women that haven’t got anybody to look after them. They take everything off those women. They take their houses and all their things, and then those law teachers go to the meeting house and say long prayers, so that people will think they are good. They just pretend to live God’s way. You know, God will punish them more than he will punish the other people that do bad things.”

Cross References

Matthew 6:7

And when you pray, don’t keep on talking on and on, with lots of words that don’t mean anything. People that don’t know God, they do that. They think that if they talk a lot, God will hear them. But they are wrong.

Mark 12:39

Those law teachers want everyone to respect them, so they want to have special chairs at the meeting houses, and if they go to parties, they want to have special places to sit.

2 Timothy 3:6

They are the sort of people that trick some women that are stupid. They find women that always do anything they feel like doing, women that really went wrong, women that know that they did lots of bad things. That sort of woman is always ready to listen to a teacher that has a new idea, but they can never understand the true message. Those bad men get those women to let them into their homes, then they trick them with their talk, until the women really believe them.