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The Parable of the Wedding Banquet
1 Jesus spoke to them again in parables, saying:
2 “The kingdom of heaven is like a king who prepared a
wedding banquet for his son. 3 He sent his servants to those
who had been invited to the banquet to tell them to come,
but they refused to come.
4 “Then he sent some more servants and said, ‘Tell
those who have been invited that I have prepared my dinner:
My oxen and fattened cattle have been butchered, and
everything is ready. Come to the wedding banquet.’
5 “But they paid no attention and went off—one to his
field, another to his business. 6 The rest seized his
servants, mistreated them and killed them. 7 The king was
enraged. He sent his army and destroyed those murderers and
burned their city.
8 “Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding banquet
is ready, but those I invited did not deserve to come. 9 Go
to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you
find.’ 10 So the servants went out into the streets and
gathered all the people they could find, the bad as well as
the good, and the wedding hall was filled with guests.
11 “But when the king came in to see the guests, he
noticed a man there who was not wearing wedding clothes. 12
‘Friend,’ he asked, ‘how did you get in here without wedding
clothes?’ The man was speechless.
13 “Then the king told the attendants, ‘Tie him hand
and foot, and throw him outside, into the darkness, where
there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’
14 “For many are invited, but few are chosen.”
Paying the Imperial Tax to Caesar
15 Then the Pharisees went out and laid plans to trap
him in his words. 16 They sent their disciples to him along
with the Herodians. “Teacher,” they said, “we know that you
are a man of integrity and that you teach the way of God in
accordance with the truth. You aren’t swayed by others,
because you pay no attention to who they are. 17 Tell us
then, what is your opinion? Is it right to pay the imperial
tax to Caesar or not?”
18 But Jesus, knowing their evil intent, said, “You
hypocrites, why are you trying to trap me? 19 Show me the
coin used for paying the tax.” They brought him a denarius,
20 and he asked them, “Whose image is this? And whose
inscription?”
21 “Caesar’s,” they replied. Then he said to them,
“Give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is
God’s.”
22 When they heard this, they were amazed. So they
left him and went away.
Marriage at the Resurrection
23 That same day the Sadducees, who say there is no
resurrection, came to him with a question. 24 “Teacher,”
they said, “Moses told us that if a man dies without having
children, his brother must marry the widow and raise up
offspring for him. 25 Now there were seven brothers among
us. The first one married and died, and since he had no
children, he left his wife to his brother. 26 The same thing
happened to the second and third brother, right on down to
the seventh. 27 Finally, the woman died. 28 Now then, at the
resurrection, whose wife will she be of the seven, since all
of them were married to her?”
29 Jesus replied, “You are in error because you do not
know the Scriptures or the power of God. 30 At the
resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in
marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven. 31 But
about the resurrection of the dead—have you not read what
God said to you, 32 ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of
Isaac, and the God of Jacob?’ He is not the God of the dead
but of the living.”
33 When the crowds heard this, they were astonished at
his teaching.
The Greatest Commandment
34 Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the
Pharisees got together. 35 One of them, an expert in the
law, tested him with this question: 36 “Teacher, which is
the greatest commandment in the Law?”
37 Jesus replied: “ ‘Love the Lord your God with all
your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’
38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the
second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 All
the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
Whose Son Is the Messiah?
41 While the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus
asked them,
42 “What do you think about the Messiah? Whose son is
he?” “The son of David,” they replied.
43 He said to them, “How is it then that David,
speaking by the Spirit, calls him ‘Lord?’ For he says,
44 “ ‘The Lord said to my Lord: “Sit at my right hand
until I put your enemies under your feet.” ’
45 If then David calls him ‘Lord,’ how can he be his
son?” 46 No one could say a word in reply, and from that day
on no one dared to ask him any more questions. |
Cults 
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