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
And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise …
The wicked are estranged from the womb: they go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies.
Which will not hearken to the voice of charmers, charming never so wisely.
But draw near hither, ye sons of the sorceress, the seed of the adulterer and the whore.
Against whom do ye sport yourselves? against whom make ye a wide mouth, and draw out the tongue? are ye …
But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees come to his baptism, he said unto them, O generation …
But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of …
O generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things? for out of the abundance of the heart …
And when the time of the fruit drew near, he sent his servants to the husbandmen, that they might receive …
And the husbandmen took his servants, and beat one, and killed another, and stoned another.