“The Pharisee stood and began to pray with himself this way, ‘Elohim, I thank You that I am not like the rest of men, swindlers, unrighteous, adulterers, or even as this tax collector.
“And when you spread out your hands, I hide My eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I do not hear. Your hands have become filled with blood.
“Yet they seek Me day by day, and delight to know My ways, as a nation that did righteousness, and did not forsake the right-ruling of their Elohim. They ask of Me rulings of righteousness, they delight in drawing near to Elohim.
“But where are your mighty ones that you have made for yourselves? Let them arise, see if they save you in the time of your calamity. Because your mighty ones have become as many as your cities, O Yehuḏ
you say, ‘Because I am innocent, certainly His displeasure shall turn from me.’ See, I shall bring judgment on you, because you say, ‘I have not sinned.’
“And they come to you as people do, and they sit before you as My people, and they hear your words, but they do not do them. For with their mouth they show much love – their hearts pursue their greedy gain.
Her heads judge for a bribe, her priests teach for pay, and her prophets divine for a price. Yet they lean on יהוה, and say, “Is not יהוה in our midst? Evil does not come upon us.”
“For I say to you, that unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall by no means enter into the reign of the heavens.
“And when you pray, you shall not be like the hypocrites. For they love to pray standing in the congregations and on the corners of the streets, to be seen by men. Truly, I say to you, they have their reward.
“And whenever you stand praying, if you hold whatever against anyone, forgive, so that your Father in the heavens shall also forgive you your trespasses.
For as many as are of works of Torah are under the curse, for it has been written, “Cursed is everyone who does not continue in all that has been written in the book of the Torah, to do them.”
“Because you say, ‘Rich I am, and I am made rich, and need none at all,’ and do not know that you are wretched, and pitiable, and poor, and blind, and naked.