For he said they had quenched the spirit of life within their hearts, so that Satan had taken possession of them and used them as his tools. For this cause they could not distinguish between small things and great, between the purifying of the outside and the inside, between that which sanctifieth and that which is sanctified; and they esteemed the tithing of mint and anise and cummin of more avail than mercy, judgment, and truth. Also he said they had made the interpretation of the Law into a gainful profession, doing whatsoever they did for to be honoured and admired of men. Therefore he spared not to call them, not only fools and blind, but also hypocrites. For he said that they knew in their own hearts that they had no sight and no knowledge, yet they professed to see and to know; and they had cast out their own consciences, yet would they fain appear able to judge between right and wrong. Thus they presented one appearance to men, which look only on the outside; but another appearance to God, who discerneth the inside; and therefore he called them actors in masks, or hypocrites; he likened them also unto whited sepulchres, hiding death within them. For they hated the Spirit of life, and they lived by rules and precepts which work death; and they would neither enter into life themselves, nor suffer the people of the land to enter in; and they feared and hated prophets and prophecies, and would fain destroy them; and they had hated John the prophet while he lived, and now they hated Jesus, even to the death: and this, while they professed to repent of the persecutions of the prophets by our forefathers, and to build monuments to their memory, saying, “If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets.” After this, he turned round, to go forth for the last time from the temple. But as he came to the steps, he looked back upon all the Pharisees, and upon all their friends (who stood all gathered together behind him, watching him depart), and he pronounced a curse upon them; as though it needs must be that they must yet continue their course; and Satan must accomplish his purpose in them, and must be revealed in all his wickedness working through the Pharisees his bondsmen; and the judgment of the Lord must needs fall upon these servants of Satan: “Fill ye up the measure of your fathers. Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell? Wherefore behold, I send unto you prophets and wise men and scribes: and some of them ye shall kill and crucify: and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues and persecute from city to city. That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zachariah son of Barachiah, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar. Verily I say unto you, all these things shall come upon this generation.” CHAPTER XXVII