One day, as Jesus was teaching the people in the temple and telling the good news, the chief priests and the scribes came up to him with the elders.[1] 2 They said, “Tell us: by what authority are you doing these things? Who gave you this authority?”
3 He answered them, “I’ll ask you a question too. Tell me: 4 was John’s baptism from heaven, or from human beings?”
5 They talked it over among themselves. “If we say ‘From heaven,’ he’ll say, ‘Then why didn’t you believe him?’ 6 But if we say ‘From human beings,’ all the people will stone us, because they’re convinced John was a prophet.” 7 So they answered that they didn’t know where it came from.
8 And Jesus said to them, “Then I won’t tell you by what authority I do these things either.”
9 Then he began to tell the people this story: “A man planted a vineyard, rented it out to tenant farmers, and went away to another country for a long time. 10 At harvest time, he sent a slave to the farmers so they would give him some of the vineyard’s fruit. But the farmers beat him and sent him away empty-handed. 11 He sent another slave. They beat him too, treated him shamefully, and sent him away empty-handed. 12 He sent a third. They wounded this one and threw him out.
13 “Then the owner of the vineyard said, ‘What should I do? I’ll send my son, the one I love. Maybe they’ll respect him.’ 14 But when the farmers saw him, they talked it over with each other. ‘This is the heir,’ they said. ‘Let’s kill him, so the inheritance will be ours.’ 15 So they threw him out of the vineyard and killed him.
“What will the owner of the vineyard do to them, then? 16 He’ll come and destroy those farmers and give the vineyard to others.”
When the people heard this, they said, “May that never happen!”
17 But Jesus looked straight at them and said, “What then does this Scripture mean:
‘The stone the builders rejected — this one has become the cornerstone’?[2]
18 Everyone who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces; and whoever it falls on, it will crush.”
19 The scribes and the chief priests wanted to arrest him right then and there, because they knew he had told this story against them. But they were afraid of the people.
20 So they watched him closely and sent spies who pretended to be sincere. They wanted to catch him in something he said, so they could hand him over to the authority and power of the governor. 21 They questioned him: “Teacher, we know you speak and teach what is right. You don’t show favoritism, but you truly teach the way of God. 22 Is it lawful for us to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?”
23 But he saw through their cunning and said to them, 24 “Show me a denarius. Whose image and inscription is on it?”
“Caesar’s,” they answered.[3]
25 He said to them, “Well then, give back to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and to God what belongs to God.”
26 They couldn’t catch him in his words in front of the people. Amazed at his answer, they fell silent.
27 Some Sadducees — the ones who say there is no resurrection — came to him and asked,[4] 28 “Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies, leaving a wife but no children, the man should take the wife and raise up children for his brother.[5] 29 Now there were seven brothers. The first took a wife and died childless. 30 The second 31 and then the third took her, and in the same way all seven died, leaving no children. 32 Finally the woman died too. 33 So in the resurrection, whose wife will she be? All seven had her as a wife.”
34 Jesus said to them, “The people of this age marry and are given in marriage. 35 But those considered worthy to attain that age and the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage. 36 They can’t die anymore, because they are like the angels. They are God’s children, since they are children of the resurrection. 37 And that the dead are raised — even Moses showed this at the burning bush, when he calls the Lord ‘the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ 38 He is not the God of the dead, but of the living — for to him, all of them are alive.”
39 Some of the scribes answered, “Teacher, you’ve spoken well.” 40 They no longer dared to ask him anything at all.
41 Then Jesus said to them, “How can they say the Anointed One is David’s son? 42 David himself says in the book of Psalms:
‘The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand 43 until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.’
44 David calls him ‘Lord.’ So how can he be David’s son?”
45 While all the people were listening, he said to his disciples, 46 “Watch out for the scribes. They like to walk around in long robes, and they love greetings in the marketplaces, the best seats in the synagogues, and the places of honor at banquets. 47 They devour widows’ houses and, for show, make long prayers. These men will receive a heavier judgment.”
Notes
Note 1. These three groups together made up the ruling council in Jerusalem. The chief priests ran the temple and its sacrifices; the scribes were the trained experts in the Law; the elders were leading heads of prominent families. ↩
Note 2. The quotation is Psalm 118:22. In the psalm, a stone the builders threw aside ends up as the “head of the corner,” the stone from which the whole building takes its lines. ↩
Note 3. The silver denarius of that era carried the head of the emperor Tiberius and an inscription naming him son of the deified Augustus. It was worth roughly a day’s pay for a laborer. ↩
Note 4. The Sadducees denied the resurrection (Josephus, Antiquities 18.16; Acts 23:8 adds angels and spirits) and rejected the unwritten tradition the Pharisees held to. The often-repeated claim that they accepted only the five books of Moses comes from later Christian writers reading Josephus, and is disputed. The answer comes from Exodus, the burning-bush passage. ↩
Note 5. This is the law of levirate marriage from Deuteronomy 25:5-10: if a man died childless, his brother was to marry the widow so their first son would carry on the dead man’s name and inheritance. ↩