Answer: We should not pray like the hypocrites, (verse 6).
MORE INFORMATION AND/OR OTHER SCRIPTURE REFERENCES:
Our plural "hypocrites" is an exact transliteration of the Greek singular hypocrites. This word meant "an actor on the stage," an interpreter, one who impersonates another, from the Greek verb hupokrinomai which came to mean to pretend, to feign, to dissemble, to act the hypocrite, to wear a mask. In the time of Jesus actors wore masks on their faces, with hidden megaphones in them so that they could be heard. So a hypocrite is one who wears a false face as he "megaphones forth" his "pretend" or "actor's" message. He acts under a mask, showing forth a character different from his own. He is a counterfeit person, a dissembler. He is thought by others to be different from what he really is. In this case, he is a person who wishes to be seen as a follower of God, but whose religion is not from the heart and mind. He wears his religion on the outside--it becomes his mask, his impersonation.
Jesus plainly exposed the Pharisees as being hypocrites, saying, "for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men."
The Jewish phylacterical prayers were long, and the prescribed hours of prayer obligated them to repeat these prayers wherever they happened to be. (Phylactery: either of two small, leather cases holding Scripture texts, worn in prayer on the forehead and arm by orthodox Jewish men.) The Pharisees, who were full of vain glory, planned these prayer times so that they would be done in the streets, that they might be seen by the people, and applauded for their great and conscientious piety. As they had no piety but that which was outward, they endeavored to let this outward piety fully appear in public, that they might make the most of it among the people. It would not have been satisfactory to their needs to kneel in private before God--to "go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, Who is unseen", for then they might have been unnoticed by men. Consequently they would have lost that reward for which they strove--the esteem and applause of the multitude.
Matthew 23:1-7: "Then Jesus said to the crowds and to His disciples: ‘The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat. So you must obey them and do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach. They tie up heavy loads and put them on men's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them. Everything they do is done for men to see: They make their phylacteries wide and the tassels on their garments long; they love the place of honor at banquets and the most important seats in the synagogues; they love to be greeted in the marketplaces and to have men call them "Rabbi."'"
