The Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector

⁹ Also He spoke this parable to some ^(A)who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others: ¹⁰ “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. ¹¹ The Pharisee ^(B)stood and prayed thus with himself, ^(C)‘God, I thank You that I am not like other men—extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax collector. ¹² I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I possess.’

⁵ “Say to all the people of the land, and to the priests: ‘When you ^(A)fasted and mourned in the fifth ^(B)and seventh months ^(C)during those seventy years, did you really fast ^(D)for Me—for Me? ^6 (E)When you eat and when you drink, do you not eat and drink for yourselves? ⁷ Should you not have obeyed the words which the Lord proclaimed through the ^(F)former prophets when Jerusalem and the cities around it were inhabited and prosperous, and ^(G)the ^[a]South and the Lowland were inhabited?’ ”

⁶ Then word came to the king of Nineveh; and he arose from his throne and laid aside his robe, covered himself with sackcloth ^(A)and sat in ashes. ^7 (B)And he caused it to be proclaimed and published throughout Nineveh by the decree of the king and his ^[a]nobles, saying,

⁷ After serious thought, I rebuked the nobles and rulers, and said to them, ^(A)“Each of you is ^[a]exacting usury from his brother.” So I ^[b]called a great assembly against them.

²⁹ So he answered and said to his father, ‘Lo, these many years I have been serving you; I never transgressed your commandment at any time; and yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might make merry with my friends.