In those days an edict was issued by the Emperor Augustus that a census of the whole world should be taken.

In the fifteenth year of the reign of the Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod governor of Galilee, while his brother Philip was governor of the territory of Iturea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias was the governor of Abilene,

Is it right for us to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?"

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

He said to them, "Then pay the emperor what belongs to the emperor, and pay God what belongs to God!"

and they made this charge against him: "Here is a man whom we have found misleading our nation, and forbidding the payment of taxes to the emperor, and claiming to be an anointed king himself."