Beginning
Jesus tells a story about a meal at a marriage
22 Jesus continued to teach the people with stories. 2 He said, ‘This is what the kingdom of heaven is like. A king prepared a special meal for his son's marriage. 3 He asked many people to come. When the meal was ready, he sent his servants out to tell those people to come. But they refused to come.
4 So the king then sent out other servants. He said to them, “Tell this message to all those people that I have asked to come. Tell them that the master says, ‘My servants have prepared the meal. They have killed my large oxen and some fat young cows to eat. Everything is ready. Now come to the marriage party!’ ”
5 But the people did not think that the king's message was important. They went away to do their own work. One man went to his farm and another man went to his business. 6 Other people took hold of the king's servants. They hurt them and then they killed them. 7 The king was very angry. He sent his soldiers to the city where those people lived. They killed the people who killed the king's servants. They destroyed their city with fire.
8 Then the king said to his other servants, “The meal for my son's marriage is ready. But the people that I had asked to come did not deserve to come. 9 So go out now to the town's streets where people meet together. Ask all the people that you find there to come to the marriage party.” 10 Then those servants went out into the streets. They brought to the king's house all the people that they met. Some were good people and some were bad people. Very many people came. The room for the marriage was full!
11 Then the king came into the room to see all the people. He saw one man who was not wearing the right clothes for a marriage.[a] 12 The king said to the man, “How did you come in here, my friend? You are not wearing the right clothes for a marriage.” The man could not answer the king.
13 The king said to his servants, “Tie his hands and his feet. Take him and throw him into the dark place outside. There, people will cry and they will bite their teeth together.”
14 God asks many people to come to him. But he only chooses a few people to be there with him.’
The Pharisees ask Jesus about taxes
15 After the Pharisees heard this, they thought about what they could do. They wanted to ask Jesus difficult questions. They wanted to make him say something wrong about the Roman ruler. 16 So the Pharisees sent their own disciples to Jesus. They also sent people who were friends of King Herod. They said to Jesus, ‘Teacher, we know that you only say true things. You teach us what God wants us to do. It does not matter to you what other people think. If someone is important, you do not change your answers to make them happy. 17 So tell us your answer to this question: Should we pay our taxes to the Roman ruler, Caesar? Is it right to give that money to him, or not?’
18 Jesus knew that these men wanted to do bad things to him. So he said to them, ‘You are asking that question to cause trouble for me. You are not being honest! 19 Now, show me the coin that you use for the tax.’ So they brought a coin to him. 20 Then Jesus asked them, ‘Whose picture is on this coin? Whose name is on it?’
21 They replied, ‘It is Caesar's picture and Caesar's name.’
Jesus said to them, ‘So you should give to Caesar the things that belong to Caesar. And give to God the things that belong to God.’
22 When they heard Jesus' answer, they were very surprised. So they left him and they went away.
The Sadducees ask Jesus a question
23 On that day, some Sadducees also came to Jesus. Sadducees do not believe that anyone becomes alive again after they die. They wanted to ask Jesus a question.[b]
24 ‘Teacher,’ they said to him, ‘Moses said in the Bible: A man may die and leave behind a wife but no children. Then that man's brother must marry the woman. Then their children will be called the children of the brother who died. 25 Once, there were seven brothers who lived here. The oldest brother married a woman. Then he died before they had any children. So the second brother married the woman. 26 But then he also died with no children. So a third brother married this woman. And the same thing happened to all the brothers down to the seventh brother. They all died before the woman had any children. 27 After all this, the woman also died. 28 You teach that one day dead people will become alive again. On that day, whose wife will that woman be? She had married all seven of those brothers.’
29 Jesus said to the Sadducees, ‘You are wrong. This is because you do not know the Bible. And you do not know how powerful God is. 30 One day, God will raise people up after they have died. They will become alive again. But then men and women will not marry. They will not have husbands or wives. Instead, they will be like the angels in heaven. 31 It is true that one day dead people will become alive again. You have read in the Bible about what God said to you: 32 “I am the God of Abraham. I am the God of Isaac. And I am the God of Jacob.” God is not the God of people who are dead. He is the God of people who are alive.’[c]
33 The crowd heard this. They were very surprised about what Jesus was teaching.
Jesus teaches the Pharisees about the most important Law
34 The Pharisees heard that Jesus had said these things to the Sadducees. Now the Sadducees could not say anything more to him. So the Pharisees met together. They decided what they would say to Jesus.
35 One of the Pharisees had studied God's Law very well. He asked Jesus a question to see how he would answer. 36 He said, ‘Teacher, which of God's Laws is the most important rule for us to obey?’
37 Jesus replied to him, ‘You should love the Lord your God completely: Love him with all your mind. Love him with all that you are. Love him in all that you think. 38 This is the greatest rule and the most important of all God's Laws. 39 The second rule is also important, like the first one. You should love other people as much as you love yourself. 40 All God's Laws that Moses gave us come from these two rules. All the things that the prophets wrote also come from them.’
Jesus teaches people about the Messiah
41 While the Pharisees met together with Jesus, he asked them, 42 ‘What do you think about the Messiah? Whose son is he?’
The Pharisees replied, ‘He will be King David's son.’
43 Jesus said to them, ‘So think about this: God's Holy Spirit helped King David to call the Messiah his Lord. David said, 44 “The Lord said to my Lord:
Sit at my right side until I win against your enemies.
Then you will be able to put your feet on them.”
45 We know that King David calls the Messiah his Lord. So can you really say that the Messiah is David's son?’ 46 Nobody could answer the question that Jesus asked. After this, everyone was afraid to ask Jesus any more questions.
Jesus talks about dangerous teachers
23 After that, Jesus spoke to the crowds and to his disciples. 2 He said, ‘The teachers of God's Law and the Pharisees have authority to explain the Law of Moses. 3 So you must obey everything that they teach you. But you should not do the same things that they do. They tell you what the Law of Moses teaches. But then they themselves do not obey it. 4 The rules that they give you are difficult to obey. Their rules are like heavy luggage, which they make you carry. But they themselves will not help you to carry that luggage. They will not agree to use even one finger to help you.[d]
5 The Pharisees do things only so that people will see them. They wear little boxes with words from the Bible in them, but they make them really big. They also make the tassels on their clothes very long.[e] 6 They like to sit in the important places at special meals. They also choose to sit in the best seats in the meeting places. 7 They like people to praise them in the market place. They want people to call them “Teacher.”
8 You all belong to God's family. You have only one Teacher. So nobody should call another person, “Teacher”.[f] 9 Also, do not call any other person in the world, “Father”. You have only one Father, and he is in heaven.[g] 10 And do not call each other “Leader”. You have only one Leader. He is the Messiah that God has chosen. 11 The person among you who is most important will be your servant. 12 Some people lift themselves up to be important. But God will bring them down low. Other people are humble. God will lift up those people to a good place.’
Jesus speaks against the teachers of God's Law and the Pharisees
13 Jesus spoke to the teachers of God's Law and the Pharisees. ‘It will be very bad for you,’ he said. ‘You are hypocrites! You have stopped people who wanted to go into the kingdom of heaven. It is like you have shut the door so that they cannot go in. Then you yourselves do not even go in.
14 [It will be very bad for you, teachers of God's Law and Pharisees. You are hypocrites! You take things away from women after their husbands have died. You pray for a long time so that other people will praise you. God will punish you much more than other people.][h]
15 It will be very bad for you, teachers of God's Law and Pharisees. You are hypocrites! You travel far across land and sea. You do this to make one person believe what you believe. Then, when he does believe your ideas, he becomes worse than you are. He shows that he belongs to hell even more than you do.
16 It will be very bad for you, teachers. You cannot see what is true, but you show people which way to go.[i] You say to people, “You may make a promise by the name of the temple. Then it is not a serious promise. You do not have to do it. But you may also make a promise by the gold things in the temple. Then it is a serious promise, and you must do it.” 17 This shows that you are fools. You do not understand what is true. Think about which of these is more important. Is it the gold things in the temple? Or is it the temple itself? It is the temple that makes the gold things special. 18 You also say to people, “You may make a promise by the altar in the temple. Then it is not a serious promise. You do not have to do it. But you may also make a promise by the gifts on that altar. Then it is a serious promise and you must do it.” 19 You are people who cannot understand what is true. Think about which of these things is more important. Is it the gifts on the altar? Or is it the altar itself? It is the altar that makes the gifts special. 20 Remember this: Somebody may make a promise by the name of the altar. Then he is making a promise by God's name. The altar as well as all the gifts on it are special to God. 21 Also, somebody may make a promise by the name of the temple. Then he is making a promise in the name of God, who lives there. 22 Or somebody may make a promise by heaven. Then he is making a promise by the place where God sits and rules. So he is making a promise by the name of God himself.[j]
23 It will be very bad for you, teachers of God's Law and Pharisees. You are hypocrites! When you grow spices to cook with food, you give a tenth part of these small things to God. You are right to obey this rule. But you do not obey the more important parts of God's Law. You do not help people in a good way. You are not kind to them. You do not always do what God says is right. You should have done these important things as well as the other small things. 24 You are like blind people, but you show other people which way to go. You carefully take a small fly out of your water so that you do not drink it. But then you drink the large animal that is swimming in it![k]
25 It will be very bad for you, teachers of God's Law and Pharisees. You are hypocrites! You always clean the outside of your cups and plates very carefully. You only clean the outside part that people can see. But on the inside, everything is still dirty. Inside you, your minds are full of bad thoughts. You want to have more things for yourself. You hurt other people to get what you want. 26 Pharisees, you do not see what is true! You must first clean the inside of the cup. Then the outside that people can see will also be clean.
27 It will be very bad for you, teachers of God's law and Pharisees. You are hypocrites! You are like a grave that has nice white paint on the outside and it looks beautiful. But on the inside it is full of bones and disgusting things. 28 You are the same as that. Other people look at you. They think that you are good and you obey God. But on the inside you are hypocrites. Your minds are full of many bad thoughts.
29 It will be very bad for you, teachers of God's Law and Pharisees. You are hypocrites! You build up the places where people have buried God's prophets. You make the places where they have buried good people to be beautiful. 30 You say, “Our ancestors killed God's prophets long ago. If we had lived at that time, we would not have helped our ancestors to do that.” 31 So you are speaking against yourselves. You show that you are the sons of those people who killed God's prophets. 32 Now you must finish the work that your ancestors began to do!
33 You are like a family of dangerous snakes! You will not be able to run away. God will surely punish you, and he will send you to hell. 34 So listen to this. God says, “I will send prophets to you. I will also send to you people who know many things. And I will send people to teach you what is true. But you will kill some of these people. You will kill some of them on a cross. In the places where you meet to pray, you will hit some of them with whips. They will run from one town to another town, but you will follow them.” 35 Because of all this, God will punish you for all the good people that you and your ancestors have killed. Long ago, Abel was the first of those good people. You also killed Zechariah, the son of Berekiah. He died in the yard of the temple near the altar.[l] 36 Yes, I tell you this: God will punish the people who are alive today for all those murders.
37 Jerusalem, Jerusalem! Your people have killed God's prophets. They have thrown stones to kill other people that God has sent to you. Many times, I have wanted to bring all of your people near to me. A female bird covers her babies with her body to make them safe. But you would not let me keep you from danger like that. 38 So listen! Your place will now become like a wilderness where nobody lives. 39 And I tell you this. You will not see me again until the day when you say, “May the Lord God bless the man who comes with his authority!” ’[m]
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