Luke 11:44

Woe to you! For you are like unmarked graves, which men walk over without even noticing.”

Berean Standard Bible

Study note

Setting — Jesus speaks this rebuke to the scribes and Pharisees immediately after condemning their pursuit of honored seats and public greetings, prompting a legal expert to protest the accusation.

The words — ὑποκριταὶ (hupokritai) = hypocrites, literally stage actors or pretenders, and Οὐαὶ (Ouai) = Woe, a formal declaration of impending judgment.

The thread — The unmarked grave metaphor runs parallel to Matthew 23:27’s whitewashed tombs and aligns with Psalm 5:9’s description of deceitful speech as open graves.

Why it lands — The text requires readers to verify that their external religious conduct does not mask inner corruption that defiles others through casual contact.

Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.

The Greek words

King James Version

Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are as graves which appear not, and the men that walk over them are not aware of them.

Cross-references

Matthew 23:27 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men’s bones and every kind of impurity.
Acts 23:3 Then Paul said to him, “God will strike you, you whitewashed wall! You sit here to judge me according to the law, yet you yourself violate the law by commanding that I be struck.”
Psalms 5:9 For not a word they speak can be trusted; destruction lies within them. Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit.
Numbers 19:16 Anyone in the open field who touches someone who has been killed by the sword or has died of natural causes, or anyone who touches a human bone or a grave, will be unclean for seven days.
Hosea 9:8 The prophet is Ephraim’s watchman, along with my God, yet the snare of the fowler lies on all his paths. Hostility is in the house of his God!