Now it happened in those days that a decree was sent out from Caesar Augustus [the Emperor of the Roman Empire] requiring [people from] the whole empire to be registered [i.e., for taxation purposes].

In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius the Emperor, Pontius Pilate being leftenant of Jewry, and Herod being Tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip Tetrarch in Ituraea, and in the region of Trachonitis, and Lysanias the Tetrarch of Abilene:

Are we right in paying tribute to the Emperor or not?"

"Show me a denarius. Whose head and title does it bear?" They said, "The emperor's."

"The Emperor's," they said; and Jesus replied: "Well then, pay to the Emperor what belongs to the Emperor, and to God what belongs to God."

Jesus said to them, “The kings of the Gentiles have absolute power and lord it over them; and those in authority over them are called ‘Benefactors.’

And they began to accuse him: "This is a man whom we found misleading our people, preventing them from paying taxes to the Emperor, and giving out that he himself is 'Christ, a King.'"