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Luke 11:52
ESV Woe to you lawyers! For you have taken away the key of knowledge. You did not enter yourselves, and you hindered those who were entering."
NIV "Woe to you experts in the law, because you have taken away the key to knowledge. You yourselves have not entered, and you have hindered those who were entering."
NASB Woe to you lawyers! For you have taken away the key of knowledge; you yourselves did not enter, and you hindered those who were entering.'
CSB "Woe to you experts in the law! You have taken away the key to knowledge. You didn’t go in yourselves, and you hindered those who were trying to go in."
NLT What sorrow awaits you experts in religious law! For you remove the key to knowledge from the people. You don’t enter the Kingdom yourselves, and you prevent others from entering.'
KJV Woe unto you, lawyers! for ye have taken away the key of knowledge: ye entered not in yourselves, and them that were entering in ye hindered.
NKJV “Woe to you lawyers! For you have taken away the key of knowledge. You did not enter in yourselves, and those who were entering in you hindered.”

What does Luke 11:52 mean?

Jesus finishes His judgment of the Pharisees and their lawyers with the most damning accusation yet: they know that Jesus fulfills prophecies of the Messiah, but they deliberately refuse this knowledge and keep the truth from their followers. They reject Jesus as Messiah, preventing themselves from entering the kingdom of God, and they also hinder others from entering the kingdom.

This is the peak consequence of their greed, wickedness, and injustice. They are "unmarked graves:" their lives, examples, and teaching look like everything good and clean, but they're filled with decay and death. Instead of teaching the people that the Messiah has come, the Pharisees and lawyers add needless, unbearable rules which God never intended. By suppressing the message of the prophets, they are no better than their predecessors who killed them outright. In proof, God will send more prophets and apostles whom they will kill (Luke 11:37–51).

Shortly before the crucifixion, Jesus will speak a little more clearly: "But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut the kingdom of heaven in people's faces. For you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in" (Matthew 23:13). This kingdom is what Jesus is training His disciples to proclaim (Luke 9:1–6; 10:1–11). "Uneducated, common men" will succeed where religious giants failed (Acts 4:13).
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