23:29. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, that build the sepulchres of the prophets and adorn the monuments of the just,
Build the sepulchres, etc.... This is not blamed, as if it were in itself evil to build or adorn the monuments of the prophets: but the hypocrisy of the Pharisees is here taxed; who, whilst they pretended to honour the memory of the prophets, were persecuting even unto death the Lord of the prophets.
23:30. And say: If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets.
23:31. Wherefore you are witnesses against yourselves, that you are the sons of them that killed the prophets.
23:32. Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers.
23:33. You serpents, generation of vipers, how will you flee from the judgment of hell?
23:34. Therefore behold I send to you prophets and wise men and scribes: and some of them you will put to death and crucify: and some you will scourge in your synagogues and persecute from city to city.
23:35. That upon you may come all the just blood that hath been shed upon the earth, from the blood of Abel the just, even unto the blood of Zacharias the son of Barachias, whom you killed between the temple and the altar.
That upon you may come, etc.... Not that they should suffer more than their own sins justly deserved; but that the justice of God should now fall upon them with such a final vengeance, once for all, as might comprise all the different kinds of judgments and punishments, that had at any time before been inflicted for the shedding of just blood.
23:36. Amen I say to you, all these things shall come upon this generation.