In this way, the responsibility for all the righteous blood poured out on the earth will fall on you, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah son of Barachiah, whom you killed between the temple and the altar.
Jesus recalls the whole historical line, from Abel, the first righteous man to be killed, to the prophet Zechariah, who was killed in the temple courtyard, in the holy place. In this way He emphasizes that their generation will bear the responsibility for all the previous evils and bloodshed, because the same spirit is at work in them, rejecting those sent by God. The expression “from Abel to Zechariah” includes the blood of the righteous of all times, as a symbolic boundary across the whole span of Scripture. Jesus shows that sin is never forgotten, and that God’s justice inevitably calls to account every generation that continually rejects the truth; that is, each generation answers for rejecting the truth entrusted to it. This word also highlights Jesus’ prophetic awareness: He knew that soon His own blood would become the end of that line and would silence the righteous cry of all the victims.