{Also publicans} (kai tel(936e)ai). We have had the word
already in Matthew ( Mt 5:46  9:10  11:19  18:17  21:31f. ) and
Mark ( Mr 11:15f. ). It is sometimes coupled with harlots and
other sinners, the outcasts of society. The word is made up from
	elos, tax, and (936e)eomai, to buy, and is an old one. The
renter or collector of taxes was not popular anywhere, but least
of all when a Jew collected taxes for the Romans and did it by
terrible graft and extortions. {Extort} (prassete). The verb
means only to do or practice, but early the tax-collectors
learned how to "do" the public as regular "blood-suckers." Lucian
links them with crows and sycophants.