Then he sent out some other servants, saying, ‘Tell those who have been invited, “Look, I have prepared my dinner; my oxen and fattened calves are butchered and everything is ready; come to the wedding feast.”’

Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding [feast] is ready, but those who were invited were not worthy.

So go to the main highways that lead out of the city, and invite to the wedding feast as many as you find.’

Those servants went out into the streets and gathered together all the people they could find, both bad and good; so the wedding hall was filled with dinner guests [sitting at the banquet table].

But while they were going away to buy oil, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went in with him to the wedding feast; and the door was shut and locked.

But they said, “It must not be during the festival (Passover), otherwise there might be a riot among the people.”

Now at the feast [of the Passover] the governor was in the habit of setting free any one prisoner whom the people chose.