Mark 12:18-27

Expanded Bible

Some Sadducees Try to Trick Jesus^(A)

¹⁸ Then some Sadducees came to Jesus and asked him a question. (Sadducees believed that people would not rise from the dead.) ¹⁹ They said, “Teacher, Moses wrote that if a man’s brother dies, leaving a wife but no children, then that man must marry the widow and ·have children [^Lraise up offspring/seed] for his brother [Deut. 25:5]. ²⁰ Once there were seven brothers. The first brother ·married [^Ltook a wife] and died, leaving no children. ²¹ So the second brother married the widow, but he also died and had no children. The same thing happened with the third brother. ²² All seven brothers married her and died, and none of the brothers had any children. Finally the woman died too. ²³ Since all seven brothers had married her, ·when people rise from the dead [^Lat the resurrection], whose wife will she be?”

²⁴ Jesus answered, “·You are mistaken [^LAre you not mistaken/in error…?] because you don’t know what the Scriptures say, and don’t you know about the power of God. ²⁵ [^LFor] When people rise from the dead, they will not marry, nor will they be given to someone to marry. They will be like the angels in heaven. ²⁶ ·Surely you have read [^LHave you not read…?] what God said about people rising from the dead. In the book in which Moses wrote about the burning bush [Ex. 3:1–12], it says that God told Moses, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob [Ex. 3:6; ^CGod is still the God of the patriarchs, so they must have a continued existence after death].’ ²⁷ God is the God of the living, not the dead. You Sadducees are ·wrong [greatly deceived; badly mistaken]!”