Matthew 23:4

The Passion Translation

They tie on your backs an oppressive burden of religious obligations and insist that you carry them, but will never lift a finger to help ease your load.

Cross References

Isaiah 46:1

The gods of Babylon, Bel and Nebo, are bowed down and lowered to the ground. They haul away on ox carts their wobbling idols.

Matthew 23:23

“Great sorrow awaits you religious scholars and Pharisees—frauds and pretenders! For you are obsessed with peripheral issues, like insisting on paying meticulous tithes on the smallest herbs that grow in your gardens. These matters are fine, yet you ignore the most important duties of all: to walk in the love of God, to display mercy to others, and to live with integrity. Readjust your values and place first things first.

Matthew 23:3

So listen and follow what they teach, but don’t do what they do, for they tell you one thing and do another.

Luke 11:46

Jesus responded, “You are also hypocrites, you experts of the law! You crush people beneath the burden of obeying impossible religious regulations, yet you would never even think of doing them yourselves.

Acts 15:10

So why on earth would you now limit God’s grace by placing a yoke of religious duties on the shoulders of the believers that neither we nor our ancestors have been able to bear?

Acts 15:28

“For it pleases the Holy Spirit and us that we not place any unnecessary burden on you, except for the following restrictions:

Galatians 6:13

Not even those who are circumcised keep every detail of the written law. Yet they push you to be circumcised so that they can boast that you have become like them.

1 John 5:3

True love for God means obeying his commands, and his commands don’t weigh us down as heavy burdens.

Revelation 2:24

But to the rest of you in Thyatira who don’t adhere to the teachings of Jezebel and have not been initiated into deep satanic secrets, I say to you (without laying upon you any other burden):