The Pharisees and Sadducees came to Jesus to test him. They asked him to show them a sign from heaven.[1]
2 He answered them, “When evening comes, you say, ‘It’ll be fair weather — the sky is red.’ 3 And in the morning, ‘Stormy weather today — the sky is red and threatening.’ You know how to read the face of the sky, but you can’t read the signs of the times. 4 A wicked and unfaithful generation demands a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah.” Then he left them and went away.[2]
5 When the disciples reached the other side of the lake, they had forgotten to bring any bread. 6 Jesus said to them, “Watch out and be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees.”
7 They started talking it over among themselves, saying, “It’s because we didn’t bring any bread.”
8 Jesus knew what they were saying and said, “You have so little faith — why are you talking among yourselves about having no bread? 9 Don’t you understand yet? Don’t you remember the five loaves for the five thousand, and how many baskets you picked up? 10 Or the seven loaves for the four thousand, and how many large baskets you picked up? 11 How can you not understand that I wasn’t talking to you about bread? But be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees.”
12 Then they understood that he wasn’t telling them to guard against the yeast used in bread, but against the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees.
13 When Jesus came into the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?”[3]
14 They said, “Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and still others say Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”
15 He said to them, “But you — who do you say I am?”
16 Simon Peter answered, “You are the Anointed One, the Son of the living God.”
17 Jesus answered him, “You are fortunate, Simon son of Jonah, because flesh and blood didn’t reveal this to you, but my Father in the heavens did. 18 And I tell you: you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my assembly, and the gates of Hades will not overpower it.[4] 19 I will give you the keys of the kingdom of the heavens, and whatever you tie up on earth will have been tied up in the heavens, and whatever you untie on earth will have been untied in the heavens.”[5]
20 Then he ordered the disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Anointed One.
21 From that time on, Jesus began to show his disciples that he had to go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.
22 Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, “Mercy on you, Lord! This will never happen to you.”[6]
23 But Jesus turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You’re a stumbling block to me, because you’re not thinking God’s thoughts but human thoughts.”
24 Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If anyone wants to come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. 25 Because whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. 26 What good will it do a person if he gains the whole world but forfeits his life? Or what can a person give in exchange for his life? 27 For the Son of Man is about to come in the glory of his Father with his angels, and then he will repay each person according to what they have done. 28 Amen, I tell you: there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.”
Notes
Note 1. These two groups were rivals, not allies. They clashed over basics: the Sadducees rejected the resurrection and the Pharisees’ unwritten tradition, while the Pharisees held to both. ↩
Note 2. Jonah’s story turns on the three days he spent inside the great fish before being spat out alive. Earlier in Matthew (12:40) the comparison is made explicit: as Jonah was in the fish, so the Son of Man would be “three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.” ↩
Note 3. This town sat at the foot of Mount Hermon, about 25 miles north of the Sea of Galilee, beside a great spring feeding the Jordan. It was a famous center of pagan worship, earlier called Paneas after the Greek god Pan. ↩
Note 4. “Hades” here is not the fiery hell of later imagination but the underworld, the realm of all the dead. In Hebrew idiom a city’s “gates” named its stronghold and the seat of its power. ↩
Note 5. The Greek verbs behind “tie up” and “untie” are deō and lyō, traditionally rendered “bind” and “loose.” They were standard legal terms among first-century rabbis for forbidding or permitting things under the Law: the authority to declare what was allowed or off-limits within a community. ↩
Note 6. The Greek idiom (hileos soi) literally invokes God’s mercy — “God be gracious to you” — but in use it functioned as a strong protest, close to “Heaven forbid” or “Far be it from you.” ↩