Mark 12:18-32

New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

The Question about the Resurrection

¹⁸ Some Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to him and asked him a question, saying, ¹⁹ “Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies, leaving a wife but no child, the man^[a] shall marry the widow and raise up children for his brother.^{(A) 20} There were seven brothers; the first married and, when he died, left no children, ²¹ and the second married the widow^[b] and died, leaving no children, and the third likewise; ²² none of the seven left children. Last of all the woman herself died. ²³ In the resurrection, when they rise,^[c] whose wife will she be? For all seven had married her.”

²⁴ Jesus said to them, “Is not this the reason you are wrong, that you know neither the scriptures nor the power of God? ²⁵ For when people rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage but are like angels in heaven.^{(B) 26} And as for the dead being raised, have you not read in the book of Moses, in the story about the bush, how God said to him, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’?^{(C) 27} He is God not of the dead but of the living; you are quite wrong.”

The First Commandment

²⁸ One of the scribes came near and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well he asked him, “Which commandment is the first of all?”^{(D) 29} Jesus answered, “The first is, ‘Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one;^{(E) 30} you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ ³¹ The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”^{(F) 32} Then the scribe said to him, “You are right, Teacher; you have truly said that ‘he is one, and besides him there is no other’;^(G)