Snakes, children of vipers, how will you escape the judgment of Gehenna?
These words of Jesus are at the same time condemning and warning. He calls them “serpents” and “offspring of vipers,” emphasizing their cunning, their evil, and their deadly influence on the people. With the phrase “the judgment of Gehenna,” Jesus is speaking not of a merely temporary punishment, but of eternal judgment. This shows that those who know the truth but deliberately reject it, deceiving others, will deserve a far stricter judgment. Jesus is not insulting them, but exposing their spiritual reality, showing that hypocrisy and evil inevitably lead a person to destruction. Yet within this severity there is also an indirect invitation to repent and be saved, while the judgment has not yet been carried out.