Luke 11:44
Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are as graves which appear not, and the men that walk over them are not aware of them. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are as graves which appear not, and the men that walk over them are not aware of them.
Luke 11:44 belongs to the rebuke in Luke 11:37-52 directed against the scribes, Pharisees, and Jewish religious leaders who set themselves up as judges and censors over others. They judged even people who were moved by the Holy Spirit while they themselves failed to keep God's law and resisted the Spirit's work. Their religious authority did not make them faithful, for in rebellion they perverted Scripture and displaced what God had entrusted to them. That same rebellion led them to make God's word ineffective through human traditions.
The image of graves which appear not means their respectable outward appearance and pretended worship of God concealed inward hypocrisy, corruption, and iniquity, like a grave that hides the corruption of the dead. As people who walk over unmarked graves without knowing it, others were spiritually defiled by them without being aware of it. Their claims to honor God's law were empty pretense. The same principle applies to those who appear friendly while secretly joining accusers who seek to harm God's people, for such deception, secrecy, and guile are Satan's way of working, not God's open and frank way.