|
|
NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION
Prior Chapter | Next
Chapter |
|
|
|
1 |
Jesus spoke to them
again in parables, saying: |
|
|
2 |
“The kingdom of heaven is like a king who
prepared a wedding banquet for his son.
|
|
3 |
He sent his servants to those who had been
invited to the banquet to tell them to come, but they refused to come. |
|
4 |
“Then he sent some more servants and said, ‘Tell
those who have been invited that I have prepared my dinner: My oxen and
fattened cattle have been butchered, and everything is ready. Come to the
wedding banquet.’ |
|
5 |
“But they paid no attention and went off
—
one to his field, another to his business.
|
|
6 |
The rest seized his servants, mistreated them
and killed them. |
|
7 |
The king was enraged. He sent his army and
destroyed those murderers and burned their city.
|
|
8 |
“Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding
banquet is ready, but those I invited did not deserve to come.
|
|
9 |
Go to the street corners and invite to the
banquet anyone you find.’
|
|
10 |
So the servants went out into the streets and
gathered all the people they could find, both good and bad, and the wedding
hall was filled with guests.
|
|
11 |
“But when the king came in to see the guests, he
noticed a man there who was not wearing wedding clothes. |
|
12 |
‘Friend,’ he asked, ‘how did you get in here
without wedding clothes?’ The man was speechless.
|
|
13 |
“Then the king told the attendants, ‘Tie him
hand and foot, and throw him outside, into the darkness, where there will be
weeping and gnashing of teeth.’
|
|
14 |
“For many are invited, but few are chosen.” |
|
15 |
Then the Pharisees
went out and laid plans to trap him in his words.
|
|
16 |
They sent their
disciples to him along with the Herodians. “Teacher,” they said, “we know
you are a man of integrity and that you teach the way of God in accordance
with the truth. You aren't swayed by men, because you pay no attention to
who they are.
|
|
17 |
Tell us then, what
is your opinion? Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar or not?”
|
|
18 |
But Jesus, knowing
their evil intent, said, “You hypocrites, why
are you trying to trap me?
|
|
19 |
Show me the coin used for paying the tax.”
They brought him a denarius,
|
|
20 |
and he asked them,
“Whose portrait is this? And whose
inscription?”
|
|
21 |
“Caesar’s,” they
replied. Then he said to them, “Give to
Caesar what is Caesar’s,
and to God what is God’s.”
|
|
22 |
When they heard
this, they were amazed. So they left him and went away.
|
|
23 |
That same day the
Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to him with a question.
|
|
24 |
“Teacher,” they
said, “Moses told us that if a man dies without having children, his brother
must marry the widow and have children for him.
|
|
25 |
Now there were seven
brothers among us. The first one married and died, and since he had no
children, he left his wife to his brother.
|
|
26 |
The same thing
happened to the second and third brother, right on down to the seventh.
|
|
27 |
Finally, the woman
died. |
|
28 |
Now then, at the
resurrection, whose wife will she be of the seven, since all of them were
married to her?”
|
|
29 |
Jesus replied,
“You are in error because you do not know the
Scriptures or the power of God.
|
|
30 |
At the resurrection people will neither marry
nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven. |
|
31 |
But about the resurrection of the dead–have you
not read what God said to you,
|
|
32 |
‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and
the God of Jacob’? He is not the God of the dead but of the living.” |
|
33 |
When the crowds
heard this, they were astonished at his teaching. |
|
34 |
Hearing that Jesus
had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together.
|
|
35 |
One of them, an
expert in the law, tested him with this question: |
|
36 |
“Teacher, which is
the greatest commandment in the Law?” |
|
37 |
Jesus replied:
“ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart
and with all your soul and with all your mind.’
|
|
38 |
This is the first and greatest commandment. |
|
39 |
And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor
as yourself.’ |
|
40 |
All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two
commandments.” |
|
41 |
While the Pharisees
were gathered together, Jesus asked them, |
|
42 |
“What do you think about the Christ? Whose son
is he?” “The son of David,” they replied.
|
|
43 |
He said to them,
“How is it then that David, speaking by the
Spirit, calls him ‘Lord’? For he says,
|
|
44 |
‘The Lord said to my Lord: “Sit at my right
hand until I put your enemies under your feet.” ’
|
|
45 |
If then David calls him ‘Lord,’ how can he be
his son?” |
|
46 |
No one could say a word in reply, and from that day on
no one dared to ask him any more questions.
|
|
|
_________________________________________
Prior Chapter | Next
Chapter
More
Bible Translations
|