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The Gospel of Luke 20

20 One day during that week, Jesus was teaching the people at the temple and telling them God’s good message. As he was doing that, the chief priests, the teachers of the Jewish laws, and some other elders came to him. 2 They said to him, “Tell us, what right do you have to do these things? And who gave you this right?” 3 He replied, “I will also ask you a question. Tell me 4 about John baptizing people: Did God command him to baptize or did humans command him?” 5 They discussed this among themselves. They said, “If we answer, ‘God commanded him,’ then he will say, ‘So why did you not believe him?’ 6 But if we say, ‘It was only humans who told him to baptize,’ the people will stone us to death, because most of them believe that John was a prophet whom God sent.” 7 So they replied that they did not know who told John to baptize. 8 Then Jesus said to them, “Just as you will not tell me, I will not tell you who sent me to do those things.”

9 Then Jesus told the people this parable: “A man planted a vineyard. He rented the vineyard to some people who would take care of it. Then he went to another country and stayed there for a long time. 10 When it was time to harvest the grapes, this owner sent a servant to the people who were taking care of the vineyard. He wanted them to give him his share of the grapes that the vineyard had produced. But after the servant arrived, they beat that servant and sent him away without giving him any grapes. 11 Later, the owner sent another servant, but they also beat and shamed that servant. They sent him away without any grapes. 12 Still later, the owner sent yet another servant. The farmers wounded this servant too and forced him to leave the vineyard. 13 So the owner of the vineyard said to himself, ‘What should I do now? I will send my son, whom I love very much. They will probably respect him.’ 14 So he sent his son, but when the people who were caring for the vineyard saw him coming, they said to each other, ‘Here comes the man who will some day inherit this vineyard! Let us kill him! Then the vineyard will be ours!’ 15 So they dragged him outside the vineyard, and they killed him. I will tell you what the owner of the vineyard will do to them! 16 He will come and kill those people who were taking care of the vineyard. Then he will arrange for other people to take care of it.” When the people listening to Jesus heard this, they said, “May a situation like this never happen!” 17 But Jesus looked directly at them and said, “You can say that, but think about the meaning of these words that are written in the Scriptures.

‘The stone that the builders rejected has become the most important stone in the building.

18 This stone will break to pieces everyone who falls on it, and it will crush anyone on whom it falls.’ ”

19 The chief priests and the teachers of the Jewish laws realized that he was accusing them when he told the story about those wicked people. So they immediately tried to find a way to arrest him. But they did not arrest him, because they were afraid of what the people would do if they did so. 20 So they watched him carefully. They also sent spies to talk to Jesus who pretended to be sincere, but who really wanted to get Jesus to say something wrong. They wanted to be able to accuse him of encouraging resistance to the Roman government so that they could turn him over to the governor of the province. 21 One of them said to him, “Teacher, we know that you speak and teach what is right. You do that even if important people do not like it. You teach truthfully what God wants us to do. 22 So tell us what you think about this matter. Is it right for us to pay taxes to the Roman government, or not?” 23 But he knew that they were trying to trick him to get him into trouble either with the Jews, who hated to pay those taxes, or with the Roman government. So he said to them, 24 “Show me a Roman coin. Then tell me whose picture and name are on it.” So they showed him a coin and said, “It has the picture and name of Caesar.” 25 He said to them, “In that case, give to the government what belongs to it, and give to God what belongs to him.” 26 The spies could find nothing wrong with anything that Jesus said while the people were standing around him. The spies were so amazed at his answer that they did not say anything more.

27 After that, some Sadducees came to Jesus. Their group of Jews taught that no one would rise from the dead. They also intended to ask Jesus a challenging question. 28 One of them said to him, “Teacher, Moses taught us Jews what to do if a man dies who has a wife but no children. His brother should marry the widow so that she can have a child by him. People will then consider that child a descendant of the man who died. 29 Well, there were seven brothers in one family. The oldest one married a woman, but before she had any children, he died, leaving her as a widow. 30 The second brother followed this law and married the widow, but the same thing happened to him. 31 Then the third brother married her, but the same thing happened again. In the end, all seven brothers, one by one, married that woman but died without having any children. 32 Afterwards, the woman died, too. 33 Therefore, if it is true that there will be a time when people who have died will become alive again, whose wife do you think that woman will be then? Keep in mind that she was married to all seven brothers!” 34 Jesus replied to them, “In this world, men marry women, and parents give daughters in marriage to men. 35 But the people whom God will consider worthy of being in heaven when he brings them back to life after they have died will not marry. 36 They do not marry because they cannot die anymore. Rather, they are like the angels who live forever. They are God’s children, since God has made them alive again after they have died. 37 Now that I have answered your question about marriage, I will show from Scripture that God does make people alive again after they have died. Even Moses wrote about this. In the place where he describes meeting God at the burning bush, he records how the Lord called himself ‘the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.’ God would not have said that if he had not made those men alive again and he were not still their God. 38 After all, he is not the God of people who are dead. He is the God of people who are alive, because to God, everyone remains alive even after they die.”

39 Some of the teachers of the Jewish law who were there replied, “Teacher, you have answered very well!” 40 The scribes said this because the people who had been trying to trap Jesus had stopped asking him difficult questions. He had answered so well that they were afraid to ask him anything else.

41 So in return, Jesus asked them a difficult question of his own. He said, “Why do people say that the Messiah is only a descendant of King David? 42 Consider that David himself wrote in the Book of Psalms about the Messiah,

‘God said to my Lord,

“Sit here next to me on my right side, in that position of great honor.

43 Sit here while I completely defeat your enemies.” ’

44 In this psalm, King David calls the Messiah ‘my Lord.’ That is a title of great respect. So how could the Messiah be David’s descendant? It is the descendant who should show great respect to the ancestor.”

45 Then, while all the other people were listening, Jesus said to his disciples, 46 “Make sure that you do not act like the men who teach our Jewish laws. They like to put on long robes and walk around to make people think that they are very important. They also like people to greet them respectfully in the marketplaces. They like to sit in the most important seats in the synagogues. At dinner parties they like to sit in the places for the most honored people. 47 They also steal all the property of widows. But to make other people think that they are righteous, they pray for a long time in public. God will condemn them strictly for what they have done.”

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