{The righteous} (dikaious). Jesus for the sake of argument
accepts the claim of the Pharisees to be righteous, though, as a
matter of fact, they fell very far short of it. Elsewhere ( Mt
23 ) Jesus shows that the Pharisees were extortionate and
devoured widows' houses and wore a cloak of pride and
hypocritical respectability. The words "unto repentance" (eis
metanoian) are not genuine in Mark, but are in  Lu 5:32 . Jesus
called men to new spiritual life and away from sin and so to
repentance. But this claim stopped their mouths against what
Jesus was doing. The well or the strong (ischuontes) are not
those who need the physician in an epidemic.