When Jesus says ““Blind guides! What sorrow awaits you! For you say that it means nothing to swear ‘by God’s Temple,’ but that it is binding to swear ‘by the gold in the Temple.’”
he doesn’t mean literally swearing physically by the temple he means saying I swear by the temple I didn’t steal . Now that I cleared that up what Jesus is saying is that the Pharisees and religious leaders were teaching that it’s okay to swear by the temple but not swear by the gold that is in the temple and Jesus is telling them that the temple is what makes the gold sacred yet the Pharisees seem to believe that it is okay to swear by Gods temple but a sin and horrible act to swear by the gold in Gods temple meaning they value the gold more than they value Gods temple . He’s saying the same in the next verse when he says
“And you say that to swear ‘by the altar’ is not binding, but to swear ‘by the gifts on the altar’ is binding.”
“How blind! For which is more important—the gift on the altar or the altar that makes the gift sacred?”
Now Jesus continues to explain why it is wrong to swear by Gods temple and the alter he says
“When you swear ‘by the altar,’ you are swearing by it and by everything on it. And when you swear ‘by the Temple,’ you are swearing by it and by God, who lives in it. And when you swear ‘by heaven,’ you are swearing by the throne of God and by God, who sits on the throne.”
So now we see that it’s wrong to swear by heaven , the alter, and Gods temple but for some reason the Pharisees and religious leaders and teachers believe that that was okay but very wrong to swear by the gold or gifts which was in and on the temple and alter
The Pharisees and religious leaders were teaching people wrong things this is one reason why Jesus tells the people not to follow their example.
Now These religious leaders cannot hope to lead anyone to the correct conclusions since they can’t see the truth themselves.
In Matthew 5 verse 34-37
Jesus already talks about making oaths and swears he says “But I say, do not make any vows! Do not say, ‘By heaven!’ because heaven is God’s throne. And do not say, ‘By the earth!’ because the earth is his footstool. And do not say, ‘By Jerusalem!’ for Jerusalem is the city of the great King. Do not even say, ‘By my head!’ for you can’t turn one hair white or black. Just say a simple, ‘Yes, I will,’ or ‘No, I won’t.’ Anything beyond this is from the evil one.”
Jesus explains here and also in Matthew 23 that we shouldn’t swear by anything and the reason being is because we are mere humans beings we are prone to lying , and deceiving. So this is why we shouldn’t swear by anything because is we swear by the temple of God or the alter and we break that oath or promise we made that made us swear by those sacred things we lying not only to the person we made a promise to but we are lying on the sacred thing we swore on so we shouldn’t lie or swear on anything