Matthew 12:1-8

Amplified Bible

Sabbath Questions

12 At that particular time Jesus went through the grainfields on the ^[a]Sabbath, and His disciples were hungry and began to pick the heads of grain and eat them.^{(A) 2} But when the Pharisees saw this, they said to Him, “Look! Your disciples are doing what ^[b]is unlawful on the Sabbath.”^{(B) 3} He said to them, “Have you not read [in the Scriptures] what David did when he was hungry, he and those who accompanied him—^{(C) 4} how he went into the house of God, and they ate the ^[c]consecrated bread, which was not lawful for him to eat nor for those with him, but for the priests only? ⁵ Or have you not read in the Law, that on the Sabbath the priests in the temple break [the sanctity of] the Sabbath and yet are innocent?^{(D) 6} But I tell you that something greater than the temple is here. ⁷ And if you had only known what this statement means, ‘I desire compassion [for those in distress], ^[d]and not [animal] sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the innocent.^(E)

Lord of the Sabbath

⁸ For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.”