New Testament in a Year

Sadducees: ²⁸ Teacher, Moses wrote in the Hebrew Scriptures that a man must marry his brother’s wife and the new couple should bear children for his brother if his brother dies without heirs.^{[a] 29} Well, once there were seven brothers, and the first took a wife and then died without fathering children. ³⁰ The second [took her as his wife and then he died childless,]^{[b] 31} and then the third, and so on through the seven. They all died leaving no children. ³² Finally the woman died too. ³³ Here’s our question: in the resurrection, whose wife will she be, since all seven had her for a while? Will she be the wife of seven men at once?

Jesus: ³⁴ The children of this era marry and are given in marriage, ³⁵ but those who are considered worthy to attain the resurrection of the dead in the coming era do not marry and are not given in marriage. ³⁶ They are beyond mortality; they are on the level of heavenly messengers; they are children of God and children of the resurrection. ³⁷ Since you brought up the issue of resurrection, even Moses made clear in the passage about the burning bush that the dead are, in fact, raised. After all, he calls the Lord the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.^{[c] 38} By Moses’ time, they were all dead, but God isn’t God of the dead, but of the living. So all live to God.

Religious Scholars: ³⁹ Teacher, that was a good answer.

Jesus: How is it that people say the Anointed One is David’s descendant? ⁴² Don’t you remember how David himself wrote in the psalms,

Jesus: ⁴⁶ Beware of the religious scholars. They like to parade around in long robes. They love being greeted in the marketplaces. They love taking the best seats in the synagogues. They adore being seated around the head table at banquets. ⁴⁷ But in their greed they rob widows of their houses and cover up their greed with long pretentious prayers. Their condemnation will be all the worse because of their hypocrisy.