'Tax Collector' in the Bible
Even some tax collectors came to be baptized, and they asked, “Teacher, what are we to do?”
After this Jesus went out and noticed a tax collector named Levi (Matthew) sitting at the tax booth; and He said to him, “Follow Me [as My disciple, accepting Me as your Master and Teacher and walking the same path of life that I walk].”
Levi (Matthew) gave a great banquet for Him at his house; and there was a large crowd of tax collectors and others who were reclining at the table with them.
The Pharisees and their scribes [seeing those with whom He was associating] began murmuring in discontent to His disciples, asking, “Why are you eating and drinking with the tax collectors and sinners [including non-observant Jews]?”
All the people and the tax collectors who heard Jesus, acknowledged [the validity of] God’s justice, having been baptized with the baptism of John.
The Son of Man has come eating and drinking, and you say, ‘Look, a man who is a glutton and a [heavy] wine-drinker, a friend of tax collectors and sinners [including non-observant Jews].’
Now all the tax collectors and sinners [including non-observant Jews] were coming near Jesus to listen to Him.
“Two men went up into the temple [enclosure] to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.
The Pharisee stood [ostentatiously] and began praying to himself [in a self-righteous way, saying]: ‘God, I thank You that I am not like the rest of men—swindlers, unjust (dishonest), adulterers—or even like this tax collector.
But the tax collector, standing at a distance, would not even raise his eyes toward heaven, but was striking his chest [in humility and repentance], saying, ‘God, be merciful and gracious to me, the [especially wicked] sinner [that I am]!’
And there was a man called Zaccheus; he was a chief tax collector [a superintendent to whom others reported], and he was rich.
And when the crowd saw this, they began complaining [i.e., because Zacchaeus was a despised tax collector] and said, "He is going to lodge with a sinful man."