Jesus spoke to them again in parables. He said: 2 “The kingdom of heaven is like a king who prepared a wedding feast for his son. 3 He sent his slaves to call those who had been invited to the wedding, but they refused to come.
4 “He sent other slaves and said, ‘Tell those who were invited: Look, I’ve prepared my dinner. My oxen and fattened cattle have been butchered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding.’
5 “But they paid no attention and went off — one to his own field, another to his business. 6 The rest grabbed his slaves, mistreated them, and killed them. 7 The king was furious. He sent his soldiers and destroyed those murderers and burned their city.
8 “Then he said to his slaves, ‘The wedding is ready, but those who were invited weren’t worthy. 9 So go out to the street corners and invite everyone you find to the wedding.’ 10 Those slaves went out into the streets and gathered everyone they found — both bad and 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 wasn’t wearing wedding clothes. 12 He said to him, ‘Friend, how did you get in here without wedding clothes?’ The man had nothing to say.
13 “Then the king told the attendants, ‘Tie his hands and feet and throw him out into the outer darkness, where there will be sobbing and grinding of teeth.’
14 “For many are called, but few are chosen.”
15 Then the Pharisees went and plotted how they might trap him in his words. 16 They sent their disciples to him along with the Herodians. They said, “Teacher, we know you’re honest. You teach the way of God truthfully and you don’t care what anyone thinks, because you don’t look at a person’s status.[1] 17 So tell us what you think: Is it lawful to pay the tax to Caesar or not?”[2]
18 But Jesus knew their malice and said, “Why are you testing me, you hypocrites? 19 Show me the coin used for the tax.” They brought him a denarius. 20 He said to them, “Whose image is this? And whose inscription?”
21 “Caesar’s,” they said.
Then he said to them, “So give back to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and to God what belongs to God.”
22 When they heard this, they were amazed. And they left him and went away.
23 That same day some Sadducees came to him — the ones who say there is no resurrection — and they questioned him: 24 “Teacher, Moses said 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 offspring, he left his wife to his brother. 26 The same thing happened with the second and the third, right down to the seventh. 27 Last of all, the woman died. 28 So in the resurrection, whose wife will she be out of the seven? They all had her.”
29 Jesus answered them, “You’re mistaken, because you don’t know the Scriptures or the power of God. 30 In the resurrection people don’t marry, nor are they given in marriage. They are like the angels of God in heaven. 31 And about the resurrection of the dead — haven’t you 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 When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. 35 One of them, a legal expert, tested him with a question: 36 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the law?”
37 He said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’[3] 38 This is the great and first commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”
41 While the Pharisees were still gathered, Jesus asked them, 42 “What do you think about the Anointed One? Whose son is he?”
“David’s,” they said.
43 He said to them, “How then does David, speaking by the Spirit, call him Lord? He says:
44 ‘The Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet.’[4]
45 If David calls him Lord, how can he be his son?”
46 No one could answer him a word. And from that day on, no one dared to question him anymore.
Notes
Note 1. The Herodians were backers of Herod’s ruling family and, with it, of accommodation to Rome. The Pharisees, by contrast, resented foreign rule and the compromises it required. ↩
Note 2. The question turns on the Roman poll tax (tributum capitis), a head tax tied to the census of subject peoples. It was a raw nerve in Judea: the census and tax of AD 6 had triggered a revolt, and to many the payment felt like an admission that they belonged to Caesar rather than to God alone. ↩
Note 3. The line is Deuteronomy 6:5, part of the passage Jews call the Shema (from its opening word, “Hear”). It was — and is — recited daily as the central declaration of Israel’s faith. ↩
Note 4. The quotation is Psalm 110:1. In the original Hebrew the two “Lords” are different words: the LORD (God’s name) speaks to “my lord,” a term for a human master or king. ↩