Speaking of religious nuts here, a 50-ish guy behind me, dressed up in a suit he probably wasn’t used to, commented to the clerk (young enough to be his daughter, but he was flirting w/her obviously) said he had been in the “den of vipers” today. Whuh, says she. “I had to go to court—“den of vipers” is in [some bible verse he quoted], they’re lawyers,” sez he, loading an 18 pack of beer on the belt.

I wondered if court was for a DUI in that big old over-sized truck he put the beer in.

Actually, it’s Matthew 23:33 which refers to a “generation” of vipers, from a John the Baptist rant, in the KJ version: “Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?” Other versions use, “brood”, “offspring”, “children”, etc.

“Den of vipers” allegedly was in a quotation from Andrew Jackson about bankers, but there is some question as to whether he actually said it or not.

“Generation of Vipers” was also a jeremiad by Philip Wylie on the American way of life written in 1942.