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 and the Scribes. 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.

Scholars noted multiple parallels between the denunciations in Matthew 23 and ancient Jewish practice, arguing that the language reflects a form of rhetorical invective widely used by Jews themselves in inter-party disputes rather than a distinctively anti-Jewish polemic.

Recent scholarship tends to find more historical value in the controversy narratives between Jesus and the Pharisees than 20th century scholarship. This community may have been competing for authority within Judaism in Matthew's locale in the aftermath of the destruction of Jerusalem, when a coalition rooted in the Pharisaic tradition was consolidating into what would become rabbinic Judaism, the dominant stream of Jewish life in the centuries that followed.