Matthew 3:7
As men more learned in the law than the rest, they came to John later. He calls them offspring of vipers because of their likeness: when vipers are about to come into the light, they burst their mother’s belly and leave her dead.
In the same way these men left their own mother, Jerusalem, as if she were dead, and were being saved from the killing of Christ — the crime for which they endured incurable evils for a time under the Romans, which he calls the coming wrath (Matthew 3:7).
Greek
Ὡς νομομαθέστεροι τῶν ἄλλων ὕστερον προσῆλθον τῷ Ἰωάννῃ οὓς καλεῖ γεννήματα ἐχιδνῶν διὰ τὸ ὁμοιότροπον· ὥσπερ γὰρ ἐκεῖνα, ὅτε μέλλει εἰς φῶς ἐξιέναι, διαρρήγνυσιν τὴν τῆς μητρὸς νηδὺν καὶ νεκρὰν αὐτὴν καταλείποντα ἄπεισιν, τὸν αὐτὸν τρόπον καὶ οὗτοι νεκρὰν ὥσπερ οὖσαν τὴν ἑαυτῶν μητέρα, τὴν Ἰερουσαλήμ, κατέλειψαν καὶ διεσῴζοντο ἐκ τῆς χριστοκτονίας, δι' ἣν ὑπέμειναν τὰ ἀνήκεστα κακὰ τέως ὑπὸ Ῥωμαίων, ἣν καλεῖ μέλλουσαν ὀργήν.