to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, a descendant of the house of David; and the virgin’s name was Mary.

Some soldiers asked him, “And what about us, what are we to do?” And he replied to them, “Do not extort money from anyone or harass or blackmail anyone, and be satisfied with your wages.”

Jesus replied to them, “Have you not even read [in the Scriptures] what David did when he was hungry, he and those who were with him—

I say to you, you [absolutely] will not get out of there until you have paid the very last cent.”

Nevertheless I must travel on today and tomorrow and the day after that—for it cannot be that a prophet would die outside of Jerusalem.

But he said to his father, ‘Look! These many years I have served you, and I have never neglected or disobeyed your command. Yet you have never given me [so much as] a young goat, so that I might celebrate with my friends;

He will come and put these tenants to death and will give the vineyard to others.” When the chief priests, the scribes, and the elders heard this, they said, “May it never be!”

For behold, the days are coming when they will say, ‘Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that have not given birth, and the breasts that have never nursed.’