Do What They Say, Not as They Do, Keep Your Vows on in Your Parents

In Matthew 23, Jesus says, do and observe whatever they tell you. How could the people of Israel have known what traditions to follow from the Pharisees? They would have tested them according not just to Scripture, but in the Old Testament,. There are a variety of ways that God's authority was transmitted to the people. Sometimes it's through the oral teaching of the mediator of the covenant like Moses.