Read the Gospels in 40 Days
Zacchaeus meets Jesus
19 Jesus went into Jericho and he was walking through the city. 2 There was a man there called Zacchaeus. He was a leader of the men who took taxes from people. He had become very rich. 3 He was trying to see who Jesus was. There was a big crowd there and he was a small man. So he could not see Jesus. 4 He ran on in front of the crowd and he climbed up a tree. He could see Jesus more easily from the tree, because Jesus would walk along that way. 5 When Jesus came to the tree, he looked up at Zacchaeus. He said to him, ‘Zacchaeus, come down quickly. Today I must stay in your home.’
6 So Zacchaeus came down immediately and took Jesus into his home. He was very happy about this. 7 The people saw what had happened. They were not happy, and they were saying, ‘Jesus has gone to stay in the home of a man that does bad things.’
8 Later, Zacchaeus stood up in front of everyone. He said to the Lord Jesus, ‘Listen, Master! I will give half of all the things that I have to poor people. I may have taken too much money from some people. I will give back to them four times as much as I took from them wrongly.’
9 Jesus said to him, ‘Today God has saved people in this home. Now Zacchaeus also belongs to the family of Abraham. 10 I, the Son of Man, came to look for people who are far away from God. They are in danger and I have come to save them.’
Jesus tells a story about 10 servants
11 While the people were still listening, Jesus told them a story. He did this because the people had wrong thoughts. He was now getting near to Jerusalem. So the people with him were thinking that God would begin to rule his people immediately.
12 Jesus said to them, ‘An important man left his home and he travelled a long way to another country. There he would receive authority to rule his own country. After that, he would return home and he would be king. 13 Before he left, he asked ten of his servants to come to him. He gave each of them ten pounds of silver.[a] “Use this money to get more money for me while I am away,” he said.[b]
14 But the people who were living in his country did not like the man. So they sent some of their people to the foreign country with a message. They said, “We do not want this man to rule over us.”
15 Then the man returned home and he was now their king. He asked those ten servants to come to him. He had given them each some money. Now he wanted to know how much more money they had now. They should have bought things with it and then they should have sold those things again for more money.
16 The first servant came to him and said, “Master, your money has made ten more pounds for you.” 17 The king was happy and said to his servant, “You have done well. You are a good servant that I can trust. You have used a small amount of money well. So now you will rule over ten cities.”
18 The second servant came and said, “Master, your money has made five more pounds.” 19 The king replied, “You will rule over five cities.”
20 Then another servant came. He said, “Master, here is your money. I put it away in a piece of cloth to keep it safe. 21 I did this because I was afraid of you. You tell people what they should do all the time. You take things that you did not work for. You take food from fields where you did not plant any seed.”
22 The king replied, “You are a very bad servant! I will use your own words to show you that you have done the wrong thing. You say that I tell people what they should do all the time. That I take things that I did not work for. That I take food from fields where I did not plant any seed. Did you know all that about me? 23 Then you should have put my money into the bank. When I came home, I would have received my money back, with extra money.”
24 Some other servants were standing near to their master. He said to them, “Take the money from this bad servant. Give it to the servant that has ten pounds.” 25 “But, master,” they replied, “that servant has ten pounds already.”
26 “Let me tell you this,” the king said. “Some people have received good things. They will all receive more. Some other people have nothing. Those people will lose even the little bit that they do have. 27 Now I must punish these other people that did not want me to rule over them. Bring them here and kill them in front of me.” ’[c]
Jesus goes into Jerusalem
28 When Jesus had said all this, he went on in front of them. He was going towards Jerusalem. 29 He was getting near to two villages called Bethphage and Bethany.[d] They were on the Mount of Olives.[e] Then Jesus sent two of his disciples to go further. 30 He told them, ‘Go into the village that is in front of you. When you arrive there, you will find a young donkey. Someone has tied it there. Nobody has yet ridden on it. Undo the rope and bring the donkey here to me. 31 Someone may ask you, “Why are you taking the donkey?” Then say to them, “The Master needs it.” ’
32 The two men went into the village. They saw everything there that Jesus had told them about. 33 While they were taking the young donkey, some men spoke to them. It was their own donkey. They asked, ‘Why are you taking the donkey?’ 34 ‘The Master needs it,’ the disciples replied.
35 They brought the donkey to Jesus. They put their coats on its back. Then they helped Jesus to sit on it. 36 While he was riding along, the people were putting their coats down on the road in front of him.
37 Jesus got near to the lowest part of the Mount of Olives. The whole crowd of his disciples were very happy. They began to praise God with loud voices. They thanked him for all the great things that they had seen. 38 They said:
‘May the Lord God bless the king who comes with his authority!
We want everything to be well in heaven. We praise our powerful God above!’
39 Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to Jesus, ‘Teacher, stop your disciples from saying these things.’
40 ‘Let me tell you this,’ Jesus replied. ‘If these people were quiet, the stones of the city would shout out instead!’
41 When Jesus got near to the city, he looked at it. He cried because he felt very sorry for the people in it. 42 He said, ‘You need to know what would really help you. Then you could have lived without trouble. But now, you are unable to understand properly. 43 As a result, days of trouble will come to you. Your enemies will build a wall round you. They will shut you in completely, and they will not let you leave. 44 So your enemies will knock you down. They will completely destroy your city and all the people who live in it. They will not leave even one stone on top of another stone. You did not understand that God had come to save you at this time. That is why these bad things will happen to you.’[f]
Jesus teaches in the temple
45 Jesus went into the yard of the temple. Some people were selling things there. He began to make them all leave that place. 46 He said to them, ‘The Bible says, “God's house will be a place where people come to pray.” But you have changed it into a place where robbers meet.’
47 Jesus was teaching every day in the temple. The leaders of the priests and teachers of God's Law wanted to kill him. Some other important people also wanted to kill him. 48 But all the people were listening to him very carefully. They wanted to hear everything that he was saying. So those leaders did not know how they could kill him.
Jesus talks about his authority
20 One day, Jesus was teaching people in the yard of the temple. He was telling people the good news about God. Then the leaders of the priests and the teachers of God's Law came to him. With them were some other important Jews. 2 They asked him, ‘Tell us what authority you have to do these things? Who gave you the authority to do them?’
3 Jesus replied, ‘I also will ask you a question. Tell me the answer. 4 John baptized people. Did God give him the authority to do this? Or did men tell him to do it?’
5 The Jewish leaders talked to each other about Jesus' question. ‘We could say that God gave John his authority. But if we say that, Jesus will say to us, “Then you should have believed John.” 6 But we do not want to say that only men gave John his authority. Then all the people would throw stones at us to kill us. They are sure that John really was a prophet from God.’ 7 So the Jewish leaders answered Jesus, ‘We do not know who gave John his authority.’
8 Jesus said to them, ‘You will not answer my question. So I will not tell you what authority I have to do these things.’
Jesus tells a story about farmers
9 Then Jesus began to tell this story to the people. He said, ‘A man planted vines in his garden to grow grapes there. He found some farmers to work in the garden for him. Then he went away to another country and he stayed there for a long time.
10 At the time for the harvest, the man sent a servant to speak to the farmers. He wanted them to give him some fruit from the garden.
But the farmers hit the servant with sticks and they sent him away with nothing.
11 The master sent another servant to go to the farmers. They hit him with sticks too, and they did other bad things to him. They also sent him away with nothing. 12 The master then sent a third servant to the farmers. They hurt him badly too, and they threw him out of the garden.
13 Then the master of the garden said to himself, “I know what I will do. I will send my own son to go to them. I love him very much. Perhaps they will respect him.” 14 But the farmers saw him coming. They said to each other, “This is the son of our master. When our master dies, the garden will belong to his son. So we should kill the son and then the garden will be ours.”
15 So they threw the son out of the garden and they killed him.’
Jesus went on to ask, ‘Then what will the master of the garden do to those farmers? 16 I tell you, he will come to those farmers and he will kill them. Then he will give the garden to other people to take care of it.’
When the people heard this, they replied, ‘That must never happen!’[g]
17 Jesus then looked at the people and he said, ‘You say that this must not happen. But you have read this in the Bible and you should know what it means:
“The builders refused to use a certain stone.
They thought that it had no value.
But now that stone has become the most important stone at the corner of the building.[h]
18 When a person falls onto that stone, it will break his body into pieces. When that stone falls on top of someone, it will destroy him completely.” ’
The leaders ask Jesus a question
19 The teachers of God's Law and the leaders of the priests knew that Jesus had told this story about them. They were the bad farmers in the story. So they wanted to take hold of Jesus immediately. But they did not do it, because they were afraid of the people.
20 So this is what they did to catch Jesus. They sent people to ask him difficult questions. These people pretended to be honest, but they wanted to deceive Jesus. They wanted to make him say something wrong. Then they would take him to the ruler of the city to punish him. 21 So these people went to Jesus. They said, ‘Teacher, everything that you say and everything that you teach is right. We know that. You teach everyone the same true message about what God wants us to do. You do not say something different to an important person to make him happy. 22 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?’
23 Jesus knew that those men were not really honest. They wanted to make him say the wrong thing. 24 So he said to them, ‘Show me a coin. Tell me, whose picture is on this coin? Whose name is on it?’ 25 The men replied, ‘It is Caesar's picture and Caesar's name.’ Jesus then said to them, ‘So you should give to Caesar the things that belong to him. And give to God the things that belong to God.’
26 So the Jewish leaders could not make Jesus say anything wrong. They were very surprised at his answer to their question. They could not say anything more against him. All the people who were there saw this.
The Sadducees ask Jesus a question
27 Then some of the Sadducees came to see Jesus. The Sadducees do not believe that anyone becomes alive again after they die.
28 They wanted to ask Jesus a question. ‘Teacher,’ they said to him, ‘Moses wrote this in the Bible for us: “A man may die and leave 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.” 29 But once there were seven brothers. The oldest brother married a woman. Then he died before they had any children. 30 So the second brother married this woman. But he also died without children. 31 Then the third brother married the woman. The same thing happened to all seven brothers. They all died but they had no children. 32 After all this, the woman also died. 33 You teach that one day dead people will become alive again. So, on that day, whose wife will the woman be? She had married all seven of those brothers.’
34 Jesus answered them, ‘Men and women who are alive on earth are the ones who get married. 35 But God has chosen some people to live again with him. He will raise them up after they have died. Those people will not marry. They will not have husbands or wives, 36 and they cannot die any more. This is because they will live as the angels live in heaven. They are children of God. He has made them alive again to live with him. 37 It is true that God makes dead people become alive again. Moses showed us this in his report about the bush in the wilderness. He told us that our Lord God is the God of Abraham. He is the God of Isaac. And he is the God of Jacob.[i] 38 But God is not the God of people who are dead. He is the God of people who are alive. For God, all people continue to be alive.’
39 Some of the teachers of God's Law agreed with Jesus. ‘Teacher,’ they said, ‘that was a very good answer.’ 40 After that, they were all afraid to ask Jesus any more questions.
The Messiah is someone that King David calls his Lord
41 Jesus said to them, ‘Why do people say that the Messiah will be King David's son? 42 David himself said this in the book called Psalms:[j]
“The Lord God said to my Lord,
Sit at my right side until I win against your enemies.
43 Then you will be able to put your feet on them.”
44 You see here that David calls the Messiah his Lord. So can you really say that the Messiah is David's son?’
Jesus speaks against the teachers of God's Law
45 All the people were listening to Jesus. Jesus then said to his disciples, 46 ‘Be careful not to do the same as the teachers of God's Law. They want people to think that they are important. So they walk about in beautiful long clothes. They like people to praise them in the market place. They choose to sit in the best seats in the meeting place. They like to sit in the most important places at special meals. 47 They take things away from women after their husbands have died, even their houses. Then they pray for a long time so that other people will praise them. Because they do these things, God will punish those men much more than other people.’
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