Matthew 23

Matthew 23 is the twenty-third chapter in the Gospel of Matthew in the New Testament section of the Christian Bible, and consists almost entirely of the accusations of Jesus against the Pharisees. The chapter is also known as the Woes of the Pharisees or the "Seven Woes". In this chapter, Jesus accuses the Pharisees of hypocrisy. Some writers treat it as part of the fifth and final discourse of Matthew's gospel.

The original text was written in Koine Greek. This chapter is divided into 39 verses.

Some early manuscripts containing the text of this chapter are:

Some writers treat this chapter as part of the fifth and final discourse of Matthew's gospel, along with chapters 24 and 25, although in other cases a distinction is made between chapter 23, where Jesus speaks with "the multitudes and [his] disciples", and chapters 24–25, where he speaks "privately" (see Matthew 24:3) with his disciples.

Matthew presents a concerted attack on the Jewish religious authorities at this point in his gospel narrative; there is a briefer warning about the scribes in Mark 12:38–40, and Luke has, according to Protestant theologian Heinrich Meyer, "inserted at Luke 11 portions of this discourse in an order different from the original". The pharisees themselves have been silenced in Matthew 22. According to Richard Thomas France, this section shows Jesus as a fierce controversialist concerning the values of the kingdom of heaven as opposed to the superficial approach to religion. Meyer thinks that Matthew's account is closer to the actual directive of Jesus, "although much that was spoken on other occasions may perhaps be mixed up with it"; Heinrich Ewald, on the other hand, thinks that the discourse is made up of passages that were probably original, though uttered on very different occasions.

Dale Allison states that "'Moses' seat' is ambiguous. It may either refer to a literal chair for synagogue authorities or be a metaphor for teaching authority (cf. the professor's 'chair')." Thus, the New Century Version presents this verse as:

Allison observes that "only here (in Matthew's gospel) are the Jewish leaders presented in a positive light: they should be obeyed". Moses "sat to judge the people" in Exodus 18:13, although Meyer counsels against the suggestion that the "seat of Moses" refers to this passage.

Meyer also suggests that the word ἐκάθισαν (ekathisan, "have sat down") should be read as "have seated themselves", meaning that they have "assumed to themselves the duties of this office".