The Pharisees heard all of it.They loved moneytranslateTextThey loved moneyLuke provides the motive for the Pharisees' contempt: they were φιλάργυροι ("money-lovers"). This is not an ad hominem attack but an explanation of why the preceding teaching about mammon provoked such hostility. Their financial self-interest made Jesus' money-or-God binary personally threatening. The imperfect tense of ἐξεμυκτήριζον ("they kept sneering") indicates sustained, physical contempt — the word literally means "to turn up the nose at." — and what he was saying cut too close. They sneered at him.Not a quiet disagreement. Open contempt.

Jesus looked at them. "You spend your lives justifying yourselves in front of other people. But God knows your hearts. And what people prize most highly is what God finds detestabletranslateTextdetestableThe Greek βδέλυγμα ("abomination, detestable thing") is Septuagint language for covenant violation — the same word used for idolatry (Deut 7:25–26), for the "abomination of desolation" (Dan 9:27; 11:31; 12:11), and for practices that violate the fundamental relationship between God and Israel. Jesus is not merely saying God disapproves of human status-seeking. He is using the strongest possible covenant-violation language: what humans exalt is, in God's sight, idolatry.. But do not misunderstand — heaven and earth will disappear before one stroke of a single lettertranslateTextone stroke of a single letterThe "stroke" (κεραία) refers to the tiny distinguishing marks on Hebrew letters — the serif or pen-stroke that differentiates, for example, a ד (dalet) from a ר (resh). Jesus' hyperbole is precise: not even the smallest distinguishing mark of the Torah will fall away. This saying prevents the supersessionist misreading that vv. 16 might suggest: the kingdom does not replace the Law but fulfills it. of the Law does."

He went on: "Every man who sends his wife awaypublicCulturesends his wife awayIn first-century Jewish law, only the husband could initiate divorce (ἀπολύω, literally "release/send away"). Women had no legal standing to divorce their husbands. Jesus' saying is protective: by declaring the divorcing husband guilty of adultery (μοιχεύει), he removes the unilateral power men held over women's marital status and economic security. A divorced woman in the ancient world lost her home, her social standing, and often her means of survival. The saying illustrates the Law's enduring ethical force (v. 17): even in the new era of the kingdom, the Torah's protection of the vulnerable stands. and marries another woman commits adultery. And a man who marries a woman sent away by her husband commits adultery too."