Woe to you, blind guides that you are! you say, 'Swear by the sanctuary, and it means nothing; but swear by the gold of the sanctuary, and the oath is binding.'

You are senseless and blind! for which is the greater, the gold or the sanctuary that makes the gold sacred?

he who swears by the sanctuary swears by it and by Him who inhabits it;

it is that on you may fall the punishment for all the just blood shed on earth from the blood of Abel the just down to the blood of Zechariah the son of Barachiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar.