The Parable of the Wedding
Banquet
1Jesus
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 So
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, the
bad as
well as
the good,
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 He
asked,
‘How did
you get in
here
without
wedding
clothes,
friend?’
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.”
Paying the Imperial Tax to
Caesar
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
that you
are a man
of
integrity
and that
you teach
the way of
God in
accordance
with the
truth. You
aren’t
swayed by
others,
because
you pay no
attention
to who
they are.
17 Tell
us then,
what is
your
opinion?
Is it
right to
pay the
imperial
tax 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
image is
this? And
whose
inscription?”
21 “Caesar’s,” they replied.
Then he said to them,
“So give
back 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.
Marriage at the Resurrection
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 raise
up
offspring
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.
The Greatest Commandment
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.”
Whose Son Is the Messiah?
41 While the Pharisees were gathered
together,
Jesus
asked
them,
42 “What
do you
think
about the
Messiah?
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.