“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees! You hypocrites! You travel by land and sea to win one person to your way of living, but then you make them twice as much a child of hell as you are.
At one time we all lived among those things. We followed our wrong desires and thoughts, and we tried to satisfy what they wanted us to do. God was angry with us, as he was with everyone else, because of the kind of people we all were.
“You’re a child of the devil! You’re an enemy of everything that’s right! You deceive people by using all kinds of tricks. Won’t you ever stop twisting the right ways of the Lord?
You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s wishes. From the beginning, the devil has been a murderer. He has never obeyed the truth because there’s no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, because he is a liar and the father of lies.
The people who are trying to get you to be circumcised want others to be impressed with them. They don’t want to suffer for saying that we have to depend entirely on the cross of Christ.
But I tell you that anyone who loses their temper with a brother or sister will answer for it in court. Anyone who speaks scornfully to a brother or sister will face the council of elders. And anyone who dismisses someone as worthless will be in danger of the fire in hell.
Then some Jews came from Antioch and Iconium and won the crowd over to their side. They threw stones at Paul and then dragged him out of the city, thinking he was dead.
This plan pleased everyone. They chose Stephen, a man who was full of faith and of the Holy Spirit. They also chose Philip, Procorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicolas from Antioch, who was a convert to the Jewish faith.
If your right eye causes you to sin, pull it out and throw it away. It’s better to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.
But when he saw many Pharisees and Sadducees coming to be baptized, John said to them, “You little snakes! Who warned you to try to escape the punishment that’s coming?
“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees! You hypocrites! You shut the door of the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. You don’t enter yourselves, but you won’t let in other people who are trying to enter.