The Jews scorned the words of the holy prophets because they spoke to them in plainness, so much so that they understand every word. (14:23) Like many today they listened to eloquent speakers although they did not know what they were talking about. They preferred the things they could not understand. They killed the prophets who testified boldly to them of the wickedness that blinded them. They were carried to depths they could not fathom and to heights they could not grasp because they so wished it.
"And because they desired it God hath done it, that they may stumble." God allowed them to chastise themselves.
When Jesus began his ministry among the Jews at Jerusalem, there were many who refused to walk in the ways of the Lord and many who had forgotten the agreement their fathers had made with the Lord at Sinai. It was an agreement to be faithful to him if he would be their God.
Through iniquity, the Jews had fallen in the place they held. They had stumbled in keeping the commandments of God. Many of the ordinances and judgments they had received were abandoned; others were perverted to meet the unholy purposes of priests and kings. Their worship was fast becoming a mere form. They had ensnared themselves in the fowler's net and privally taught doctrines that robbed them of their heritage.
The Jews were quick to condemn and harsh in treatment of their neighbors. Class and class-distinction ruled their relations one with another. There were the Scribes and the Pharisees who represented the learned. There were the Sadducees who preferred the policies of Imperial Rome. There were the despised Galileans and the Samaritans, with whom the Jews seldom spoke. Each one walked in his own way and all were in pursuit of their own happiness.
Although drawn together by a common religion and bound by age-old restraints, they were torn by strife and disappointed pride. In spite of their piety and learning, crafty men interpreted the "Law" to feed the hunger of infatuation and greed. To appear more holy than other they clothed themselves in robes of righteousness. The Savior called them "hypocrites" and said to his disciples, "Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees." He likened the Pharisees to whited sepulchres: "Beautiful to look at but were full of dead men's bones." The aristocratic Sadducees did not believe in the resurrection of the dead. John the Baptist called them "a generation of vipers."
Judaism, instead of being the worship of the "True and Living God" became the "sanctuary of fools" and of those who used it as a starting place for their own peculiar notions.