The Pharisees were a sect known for its strict adherence to the Jewish Law and ostentatious pietism. Ruskin conflates Jesus's story of the Pharisee whose self-righteous prayers remain unanswered, whereas the genuinely penitent publican, or tax-collector, 'went down to his house justified' (Luke 18), with His repeated prophecy on religious hypocrites in the Sermon on the Mount: 'Verily I say unto you, They have their reward' (Matthew 6). (See Ruskin and religion.)