26 And now behold, for God has sent again to you his holy men-apostles, prophets, seers; and you are persecuting them.
27 The time is near when you will plead against them in the courts; will spurn them on the streets; will cast them into prison cells, and kill them with a fiend’s delight.
28 I tell you, men, the blood of all the holy men of God that has been shed from righteous Abel down to that of Zacharias, father of the holy John,
29 Who was struck down beside the altar in the Holy Place—
30 The blood of all these holy men has made more red the hands of this ungodly generation.
31 Woe unto you, you masters of the law! you snatch the keys of knowledge from the hands of men;
32 You close the doors; you enter not yourselves, and suffer not the willing ones to enter in.
33 His words provoked the Pharisees, the lawyers and the scribes, and they, resenting, poured upon him torrents of abuse.
34 The truths he spoke came like a thunderbolt from heaven; the rulers counseled how they might ensnare him by his words; they sought a legal way to shed his blood.