Two witnesses

11 Then I was given a measuring rod, which was like a pole. And I was told, “Get up and measure God’s temple, the altar, and those who worship there. ² But don’t measure the court outside the temple. Leave that out, because it has been given to the nations, and they will trample the holy city underfoot for forty-two months.

³ “And I will allow my two witnesses to prophesy for one thousand two hundred sixty days, wearing mourning clothes. ⁴ These are the two olive trees and the two lampstands that stand before the Lord of the earth. ⁵ If anyone wants to hurt them, fire comes out of their mouth and burns up their enemies. So if anyone wants to hurt them, they have to be killed in this way. ⁶ They have the power to close up the sky so that no rain will fall for as long as they prophesy. They also have power over the waters, to turn them into blood, and to strike the earth with any plague, as often as they wish.

⁷ “When they have finished their witnessing, the beast that comes up from the abyss will make war on them, gain victory over them, and kill them. ⁸ Their dead bodies will lie on the street of the great city that is spiritually called Sodom and Egypt, where also their Lord was crucified. ⁹ And for three and a half days, members of the peoples, tribes, languages, and nations will look at their dead bodies, but they won’t let their dead bodies be put in a tomb. ¹⁰ Those who live on earth will rejoice over them. They will celebrate and give each other gifts, because these two prophets had brought such pain to those who live on earth.

¹¹ “But after three and a half days, the breath of life from God entered them, and they stood on their feet. Great fear came over those who saw them. ¹² Then they heard a loud voice from heaven say to them, ‘Come up here.’ And they went up to heaven in a cloud, while their enemies watched them.

Psalm 144

Of David.

¹⁷ Staring at them, Jesus said, “Then what is the meaning of this text of scripture: The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone?^{[a] 18} Everyone who falls on that stone will be crushed. And the stone will crush the person it falls on.” ¹⁹ The legal experts and chief priests wanted to arrest him right then because they knew he had told this parable against them. But they feared the people.

An attempt to trap Jesus

²⁰ The legal experts and chief priests were watching Jesus closely and sent spies who pretended to be sincere. They wanted to trap him in his words so they could hand him over to the jurisdiction and authority of the governor. ²¹ They asked him, “Teacher, we know that you are correct in what you say and teach. You don’t show favoritism but teach God’s way as it really is. ²² Does the Law allow people to pay taxes to Caesar or not?”

²³ Since Jesus recognized their deception, he said to them, ²⁴ “Show me a coin.^[b] Whose image and inscription does it have on it?”

“Caesar’s,” they replied.

²⁵ He said to them, “Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God.” ²⁶ They couldn’t trap him in his words in front of the people. Astonished by his answer, they were speechless.

Question about the resurrection

²⁷ Some Sadducees, who deny that there’s a resurrection, came to Jesus and asked, ²⁸ “Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies leaving a widow but no children, the brother must marry the widow and raise up children for his brother.^{[c] 29} Now there were seven brothers. The first man married a woman and then died childless. ³⁰ The second ³¹ and then the third brother married her. Eventually all seven married her, and they all died without leaving any children. ³² Finally, the woman died too. ³³ In the resurrection, whose wife will she be? All seven were married to her.”

³⁴ Jesus said to them, “People who belong to this age marry and are given in marriage. ³⁵ But those who are considered worthy to participate in that age, that is, in the age of the resurrection from the dead, won’t marry nor will they be given in marriage. ³⁶ They can no longer die, because they are like angels and are God’s children since they share in the resurrection. ³⁷ Even Moses demonstrated that the dead are raised—in the passage about the burning bush, when he speaks of the Lord as the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.^{[d] 38} He isn’t the God of the dead but of the living. To him they are all alive.”

³⁹ Some of the legal experts responded, “Teacher, you have answered well.” ⁴⁰ No one dared to ask him anything else.