The Pharisee stood and was praying this to himself: ‘O God, I thank You that I am not like other people—thieving, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.
Yet they seek Me day to day and delight to know My ways, as if they were a nation that did right, and had not forsaken their God’s decree. They ask Me for righteous judgments; they delight in the nearness of God.”
Where are your gods that you made for yourself? Let them come—if they can save you when you are in trouble! For you have as many gods as y0u have cities, O Judah.
So they come to you, as people come, and sit before you as My people and hear your words—but they do not do them—for with their mouth they express doting love, but their heart goes after their own dishonest gain.
Her leaders give judgment for a bribe. Her priests give direction for a price. Her prophets practice divination for money. Yet they lean on Adonai by saying: “Is not Adonai in our midst? No calamity will come upon us!”
“When you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners, so that they may be seen by others. Amen, I tell you, they have their reward in full!
For all who rely on the deeds of Torah are under a curse—for the Scriptures say, “Cursed is everyone who does not keep doing everything written in the scroll of the Torah.”
For you say, ‘I am rich, I have made myself wealthy, and I need nothing.’ But you do not know that you are miserable and pitiable and poor and blind and naked.