Bible Verses About Self-Righteousness

But the older son became angry and refused to go inside. “So his father came out and pleaded with him.

‘Look,’ the son answered, ‘I have worked for you all these years, and I have never disobeyed your orders. But you have never even given me a young goat, so that I could celebrate with my friends.

Yet this son of yours comes, who squandered your property with prostitutes, and for him you slaughter the fattened calf!’

‘Son, you are always with me,’ said the father, ‘and everything I have is yours.

We had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead but has come back to life — he was lost but has been found.’”

The P’rushim heard all this, and since they were money-lovers, they ridiculed him.

He said to them, “You people make yourselves look righteous to others, but God knows your hearts; what people regard highly is an abomination before God!

Also, to some who were relying on their own righteousness and looking down on everyone else, he told this parable:

“Two men went up to the Temple to pray, one a Parush and the other a tax-collector.

The Parush stood and prayed to himself, ‘O God! I thank you that I am not like the rest of humanity — greedy, dishonest, immoral, or like this tax-collector!

I fast twice a week, I pay tithes on my entire income, . . . ’

But the tax-collector, standing far off, would not even raise his eyes toward heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God! Have mercy on me, sinner that I am!’

I tell you, this man went down to his home right with God rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but everyone who humbles himself will be exalted.”

One of the leaders asked him, “Good rabbi, what should I do to obtain eternal life?”

Yeshua said to him, “Why are you calling me good? No one is good but God!

You know the mitzvot — ‘Don’t commit adultery, don’t murder, don’t steal, don’t give false testimony, honor your father and mother, . . .’”

He replied, “I have kept all these since I was a boy.”

On hearing this Yeshua said to him, “There is one thing you still lack. Sell whatever you have, distribute the proceeds to the poor, and you will have riches in heaven. Then come, follow me!”

But when the man heard this, he became very sad, because he was very rich.

They answered, “We are the seed of Avraham and have never been slaves to anyone; so what do you mean by saying, ‘You will be set free’?”

Then they railed at him. “You may be his talmid,” they said, “but we are talmidim of Moshe!

“Why, you mamzer!” they retorted, “Are you lecturing us?” And they threw him out.

Yeshua said, “It is to judge that I came into this world, so that those who do not see might see, and those who do see might become blind.”

Some of the P’rushim nearby heard this and said to him, “So we’re blind too, are we?”

Yeshua answered them, “If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin. But since you still say, ‘We see,’ your guilt remains.