23Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his followers, ²“The teachers of the law and the Pharisees have the authority to tell you what the law of Moses says. ³So you should obey and follow whatever they tell you, but their lives are not good examples for you to follow. They tell you to do things, but they themselves don’t do them. ⁴They make strict rules and try to force people to obey them, but they are unwilling to help those who struggle under the weight of their rules.

⁵“They do good things so that other people will see them. They enlarge the little boxes ⁿ holding Scriptures that they wear, and they make their special prayer clothes very long. ⁶Those Pharisees and teachers of the law love to have the most important seats at feasts and in the synagogues. ⁷They love people to greet them with respect in the marketplaces, and they love to have people call them ‘Teacher.’

⁸“But you must not be called ‘Teacher,’ because you have only one Teacher, and you are all brothers and sisters together. ⁹And don’t call any person on earth ‘Father,’ because you have one Father, who is in heaven. ¹⁰And you should not be called ‘Master,’ because you have only one Master, the Christ. ¹¹Whoever is your servant is the greatest among you. ¹²Whoever makes himself great will be made humble. Whoever makes himself humble will be made great.

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Footnotes

nboxes Small leather boxes containing four important Scriptures. Some Jews tied these to their foreheads and left arms, probably to show they were very religious.