1 One day, when he was teaching the people in the temple and preaching the gospel, up came the priests and scribes along with the elders.
2 "Tell us," they said, "what authority you have for acting in this way? Who was it that gave you this authority?"
3 He answered them, "Well, I will ask you a question. Tell me,
4 did the baptism of John come from heaven or from men?"
5 Now they reasoned to themselves, "If we say, 'From heaven,' he will ask, 'Why did you not believe him?'
6 And if we say, 'From men,' the whole of the people will stone us, for they are convinced John was a prophet."
9 Then he proceeded to tell the people the following parable. "A man planted a vineyard, leased it to vinedressers, and went abroad for some time.
10 When the season came round he sent a servant to the vine dressers to receive part of the produce of the vineyard, but the vinedressers flogged him and sent him off with nothing.
11 He proceeded to send another servant, and they flogged him too, insulted him and sent him off with nothing.
12 Then he sent still a third, but this one they wounded and threw outside.
13 Said the owner of the vineyard, 'What shall I do? I will send my beloved son; perhaps they will respect him.'
14 But when the vinedressers saw him, they argued to themselves, 'Here is the heir, let us kill him, so that the inheritance may be ours.'
15 And they threw him outside the vineyard and killed him. Now what will the owner of the vineyard do to them?
16 He will come and kill these vinedressers and give the vineyard to others." When they heard that, they said, "God forbid!"
17 But he looked at them and said, "Then what does this scripture mean? ??The stone that the builders rejected is the chief stone now of the corner.
18 Everyone who falls on that stone will be shattered, and whoever it falls upon will be crushed."
19 At that hour the scribes and high priests tried to lay hands on him, but they were afraid of the people. They knew he had meant this parable for them.
20 So watching their chance they sent spies who pretended to be honest persons, in order to seize on what he said and get him handed over to the authority and jurisdiction of the governor.
21 They put this question to him, "Teacher, we know you are straight in what you say and teach, you do not look to human favour but teach the Way of God honestly.
22 Is it right for us to pay tribute to Caesar or not?"
23 But he noted their knavery and said to them,
24 "Show me a shilling. Whose likeness and inscription does it bear?" "Caesar's," they replied.
25 "Well then," he said to them, "give Caesar what belongs to Caesar, give God what belongs to God."
26 So they could not seize on what he said before the people, and marvelling at his reply they said nothing.
27 Some of the Sadducees came up, who deny any resurrection, and put a question to him.
28 "Teacher," they said, "Moses has written this law for us, that if a man's married brother dies and is childless, his brother is to take the woman and raise offspring for his brother.
29 Well, there were seven brothers. The first married a wife and died childless.
30 The second
31 and the third took her, as indeed all the seven did, dying and leaving no children.
32 Afterwards the woman died too.
33 Now at the resurrection whose wife will she be? She was wife to the seven of them."
34 Jesus said to them, "People in this world marry and are married,
35 but those who are considered worthy to attain yonder world and the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are married,
36 for they cannot die any more; they are equal to angels and by sharing in the resurrection they are sons of God.
37 And that the dead are raised has been indicated by Moses in the passage on the Bush, when he calls the Lord 'God of Abraham and God of Isaac and God of Jacob.'
38 God is not a God of dead people but of living, for all live to him."
39 Some of the scribes declared, "Teacher, that was a fine answer!"
40 They no longer dared to put any question to him.
41 But he said to them, "How can people say that the Christ is David's son?
42 Why, David himself says in the book of psalms, The Lord said to my Lord, 'Sit at my right hand,
43 till I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.'
45 And in the hearing of all the people he said to his disciples,
46 "Beware of the scribes! They like to walk about in long robes, they are fond of getting saluted in the market-places, of securing the front seats in the synagogues and the best places at banquets;
47 they prey upon the property of widows and offer long unreal prayers. All the heavier will their sentence be!"