Matthew 3:7 is the seventh verse of the third chapter of the Gospel of Matthew

Gospel of Matthew

The Gospel According to Matthew is one of the four canonical gospels, one of the three synoptic gospels, and the first book of the New Testament. It tells of the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth...

 in the New Testament

New Testament

The New Testament is the second major division of the Christian biblical canon, the first such division being the much longer Old Testament....

. The verse occurs in the section introducing John the Baptist

John the Baptist

John the Baptist was an itinerant preacher and a major religious figure mentioned in the Canonical gospels. He is described in the Gospel of Luke as a relative of Jesus, who led a movement of baptism at the Jordan River...

. In this verse he attacks the Pharisees

Pharisees

The Pharisees were at various times a political party, a social movement, and a school of thought among Jews during the Second Temple period beginning under the Hasmonean dynasty in the wake of...

 and Sadducees

Sadducees

The Sadducees were a sect or group of Jews that were active in Ancient Israel during the Second Temple period, starting from the second century BC through the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD. The sect was identified by Josephus with the upper social and economic echelon of Judean society...

.

In the King James Version of the Bible the text reads:

But when he saw many of the

Pharisees and Sadducees come

to his baptism, he said unto

them, O generation of vipers,

who hath warned you to flee

from the wrath to come?

The World English Bible

World English Bible

The World English Bible is a public domain translation of the Bible that is currently in draft form. Work on the World English Bible began in 1997 and was known as the American Standard Version 1997...

 translates the passage as:

But when he saw many of the

Pharisees and Sadducees coming

for his baptism, he said to them,

"You offspring of vipers, who warned

you to flee from the wrath to come?

For a collection of other versions see BibRef Matthew 3:7

This verse is the beginning of a tirade by John the Baptist. This lecture is also found in Luke, with this verse being very similar to Luke 3:7. This section is not found in Mark and most scholars believe that Matthew and Luke are both copying from the hypothetical Q. The most important difference between Matthew and Luke is that in Luke John the Baptist is speaking to the multitude that have come to see him, while Matthew has him addressing the Pharisees and Sadducees in particular.

The Pharisees and Sadducees were two powerful and competing factions within Judaism at the time. Throughout the New Testament, and especially in Matthew, the Pharisees are presented as opponents of Jesus and responsible for his crucifixion. Some versions translate the passage as saying they were coming "for baptism." The wording is ambiguous but based on the rest of the text most scholars feel that it is more appropriate to say they were coming "to the baptism" likely to observe and investigate this new movement, rather than to be baptized themselves. Jones notes that as the entrenched powers both groups would have reason to be deeply interested in new mass movements such as John's. However, the two acting in concert is, according to Hill, quite ahistorical as the Pharisees and Sadducees were long and bitter rivals. The two groups reappear as a pair in Matthew 16. An alternative view is that the Pharisees and Sadducees are coming to be baptized, and that this reflects the mass popularity of John's program. it also incites his attack as he does not believe that many of those coming to him have truly repented. This would also close the distance between Matthew's speech to directed at the Pharisees and Sadducees and Luke's to John's audience in general.

A number of theories have been advanced to explain why Matthew might be directing John's attack to these groups while Luke focuses on the general multitude. Schweizer feels that since Matthew was writing for a more Jewish audience than Luke the author of Matthew did not want to offend all Jews and thus focused only on the unpopular elites. At the time and place the author of Matthew was writing the Pharisees were staunch opponents of the new Christian movement, and the author of Matthew thus had motive to direct criticisms towards them. Most other scholars disagree with this view and they believe that the phrase "Pharisees and Sadducees" more likely refers to all Jews, in keeping with Luke. Hill notes that the author of Matthew might use the term Sadducee to refer to all non-Pharisee Jews. France believes Matthew is just mentioning the two most prestigious of the many groups that came to observe John.

Albright and Mann note that a viper's brood was a common expression at the time indicating those filled with malice. Jesus later uses the same turn of phrase in Matthew 12:34 and 23:33. France speculates that the term could be rooted in Jeremiah 46:22, which also connects to the tree metaphor in Matthew 3:10

Matthew 3:10

Matthew 3:10 is the tenth verse of the third chapter of the Gospel of Matthew in the New Testament. The verse occurs in where John the Baptist is berating the Pharisees and Sadducees. He has previously called them a brood of vipers and warned them of the wrath to come and has urged them to repent...

. Malina and Rohrbaugh note that the use of the word "offspring" implies a child not from a legitimate union. They suggest "snake bastards" is thus a more accurate translation. This also links to Matthew 3:9 where the Pharisees and Sadducees defend themselves by citing their lineage. This insult in this verse has been borrowed by a number of other writers, including Shakespeare in Troilus and Cressida

Troilus and Cressida

Troilus and Cressida is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in 1602. It was also described by Frederick S. Boas as one of Shakespeare's problem plays. The play ends on a very bleak note with the death of the noble Trojan Hector and destruction of the love between Troilus...

, Anthony Trollope

Anthony Trollope

Anthony Trollope was one of the most successful, prolific and respected English novelists of the Victorian era. Some of his best-loved works, collectively known as the Chronicles of Barsetshire, revolve around the imaginary county of Barsetshire...

 in Barchester Towers

Barchester Towers

Barchester Towers, published in 1857, is the second novel in Anthony Trollope's series known as the "Chronicles of Barsetshire". It is possibly Trollope's best known work...

, Somerset Maugham in Catalina

Catalina

- Geography :* Catalina, Arizona* Cătălina, Romania** Catalina, Covasna, Romania* Santa Catalina, Ilocos Sur* Santa Catalina, Negros Oriental* Catalina, Newfoundland and Labrador* Santa Catalina Mountains...

, and in the title of François Mauriac

François Mauriac

François Mauriac was a French author; member of the Académie française ; laureate of the Nobel Prize in Literature . He was awarded the Grand Cross of the Légion d'honneur .-Biography:...

's Le noeud de viperes.

Albright and Mann note that it is important not to read the word wrath as a synonym for anger

Anger

Anger is an automatic response to ill treatment. It is the way a person indicates he or she will not tolerate certain types of behaviour. It is a feedback mechanism in which an unpleasant stimulus is met with an unpleasant response....

. Rather in Jewish and Christian thought it refers to the necessary meting out of final justice by an all loving God. Clarke notes that this phrase has been reused in other important contexts. In The Pilgrim's Progress

The Pilgrim's Progress

The Pilgrim's Progress from This World to That Which Is to Come is a Christian allegory written by John Bunyan and published in February, 1678. It is regarded as one of the most significant works of religious English literature, has been translated into more than 200 languages, and has never been...

it is a warning of "the wrath to come" by a character known as the Evangelist that sets the protagonist on his quest. John

John Wesley

John Wesley was a Church of England cleric and Christian theologian. Wesley is largely credited, along with his brother Charles Wesley, as founding the Methodist movement which began when he took to open-air preaching in a similar manner to George Whitefield...

 and Charles Wesley

Charles Wesley

Charles Wesley was an English leader of the Methodist movement, son of Anglican clergyman and poet Samuel Wesley, the younger brother of Anglican clergyman John Wesley and Anglican clergyman Samuel Wesley , and father of musician Samuel Wesley, and grandfather of musician Samuel Sebastian Wesley...

 used the same phrase to advertise the Bible studies that would eventually grow into Methodism

Methodism

Methodism is a movement of Protestant Christianity represented by a number of denominations and organizations, claiming a total of approximately seventy million adherents worldwide. The movement traces its roots to John Wesley's evangelistic revival movement within Anglicanism. His younger brother...

.