'Pretense' in the Bible

"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you devour widows' houses, and as a pretense you make long prayers. Therefore you will receive greater condemnation.

[Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you devour widows’ houses, and for a pretense you make long prayers; therefore you will receive greater condemnation.]

So you, also, outwardly seem to be just and upright to men, but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.