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The Seventh Woe (Woe to You Scribes and Pharisees)

The seventh woe refers to no special vice, but gives a graphic picture of their hypocrisy in general. These play-actors were like the white-washed tombs to be seen everywhere, at that time of the year, in Palestine. The outside looked fair, but, inside, they were full of dead men's bones. It was ceremonial defilement to come in contact with the dead, hence the tombs were white-washed every year, just before the time of the Passover Feast when the pilgrims came up from every part of the land. Many of these tombs were visible around Jerusalem, fit emblems of the Pharisees, who had so eloquently appeared just to men, but "within were full of hypocrisy and lawlessness."