Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

³³ “John’s disciples often fast, and say prayers,” they said to him, “and so do the Pharisees’ followers—but your disciples eat and drink.”

³⁴ “Can you make the wedding guests fast,” replied Jesus, “while the bridegroom is with them? ³⁵ But the time will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them. That’s when they will fast.”

³⁶ He added this parable. “Nobody tears a piece of cloth from a new coat to make a patch on an old one. If they do, they tear the new, and the patch from it won’t fit the old one anyway. ³⁷ And nobody puts new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the new wine will burst the skins: it will go to waste, and the skins will be ruined too. ³⁸ You have to put new wine in new skins. ³⁹ And nobody who drinks old wine wants new. ‘I prefer the old,’ they say.”