Mark 12:18-27

International Children’s Bible

Sadducees Try to Trick Jesus

¹⁸ Then some Sadducees came to Jesus. (Sadducees believe that no person will rise from death.) The Sadducees asked Jesus a question. ¹⁹ They said, “Teacher, Moses wrote that a man’s brother might die. He leaves a wife but no children. Then that man must marry the widow and have children for the dead brother. ²⁰ There were seven brothers. The first brother married but died. He had 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. None of the brothers had any children. The woman was last to die. ²³ But all seven brothers had married her. So at the time people rise from death, whose wife will the woman be?”

²⁴ Jesus answered, “Why did you make this mistake? Is it because you don’t know what the Scriptures say? Or is it because you don’t know about the power of God? ²⁵ When people rise from death, there will be no marriage. People will not be married to each other but will be like angels in heaven. ²⁶ Surely you have read what God said about people rising from death. In the book in which Moses wrote about the burning bush,^[a] it says that God told Moses this: ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’^{[b] 27} God is the God of living people, not dead people. You Sadducees are wrong!”