Matthew 23:33
Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?
Study Note
Study Note
'Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?' — this climactic indictment in Jesus's seven woes against the scribes and Pharisees is the most severe public denunciation in the Synoptic Gospels. The serpent-brood language echoes the Baptist's identical charge in Matthew 3:7 and connects to Genesis 3:15's enmity between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent, suggesting a typological identification of religious hypocrisy with primordial opposition to God. The rhetorical question 'how can you escape' is not an offer of alternative paths but a proclamation of inevitable accountability — addressed to those whose religious position gave them every opportunity to recognize but they chose to resist the kingdom's arrival.
Other Translations
Ye serpents, ye offspring of vipers, how shall ye escape the judgment of hell?
`Serpents! brood of vipers! how may ye escape from the judgment of the gehenna?
You snakes, offspring of snakes, how will you be kept from the punishment of hell?
Cross References
Against whom do ye sport yourselves? against whom make ye a wide mouth, and draw out the tongue? are ye …
But draw near hither, ye sons of the sorceress, the seed of the adulterer and the whore.
Then said he to the multitude that came forth to be baptized of him, O generation of vipers, who hath …
But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be …
And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: …
And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise …
Which will not hearken to the voice of charmers, charming never so wisely.
The wicked are estranged from the womb: they go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies.
Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he …
But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye …