Matthew 21

¹ As they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethphage at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent off two disciples,

² telling them, "Go into the village ahead of you, and right away you will find a donkey tied there, with a colt beside her. Untie them and bring them to me.

³ If anyone says anything to you, say, 'The Lord needs them,' and he will send them at once."

⁴ This happened to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet:

⁵ "Say to Daughter Zion,
'Look, your king is coming to you,
gentle and mounted on a donkey,
on a colt, the foal of a donkey.'"

⁶ So the disciples went and did as Jesus had instructed them.

⁷ They brought the donkey and the colt, laid their cloaks on them, and he sat on them.

⁸ A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, while others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road.

⁹ The crowds going ahead of him and those following kept shouting,
"Hosanna to the Son of David!
Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!
Hosanna in the highest!"

¹⁰ When he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred and asked, "Who is this?"

¹¹ The crowds answered, "This is the prophet Jesus, from Nazareth in Galilee."

¹² Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those selling doves,

¹³ and he said to them, "It is written,
'My house will be called a house of prayer,'
but you are making it a den of robbers."

¹⁴ The blind and the lame came to him at the temple, and he healed them.

¹⁵ But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the wonderful things he did and the children shouting in the temple, "Hosanna to the Son of David!" they were indignant

¹⁶ and said to him, "Do you hear what these children are saying?" "Yes," Jesus replied. "Have you never read,
'From the lips of children and infants
you have prepared praise for yourself'?"

¹⁷ Then he left them, went out of the city to Bethany, and spent the night there.

¹⁸ Early in the morning, as he was returning to the city, he was hungry.

¹⁹ Seeing a fig tree by the road, he went up to it but found nothing on it except leaves. Then he said to it, "May you never bear fruit again!" And the fig tree withered at once.

²⁰ When the disciples saw this, they were amazed and asked, "How did the fig tree wither so quickly?"

²¹ Jesus answered, "Truly I tell you, if you have faith and do not doubt, you will not only do what was done to the fig tree, but even if you say to this mountain, 'Be lifted up and thrown into the sea,' it will happen.

²² And whatever you ask for in prayer, believing, you will receive."

²³ When he entered the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came to him as he was teaching and asked, "By what authority are you doing these things? And who gave you this authority?"

²⁴ Jesus answered, "I will also ask you one question. If you answer it for me, I will tell you by what authority I do these things.

²⁵ Where did John's baptism come from? From heaven, or from human beings?" They discussed it among themselves, saying, "If we say, 'From heaven,' he will ask us, 'Then why didn't you believe him?'

²⁶ But if we say, 'From human beings,' we are afraid of the crowd, since they all regard John as a prophet."

²⁷ So they answered Jesus, "We don't know." Then he said to them, "Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things.

²⁸ "What do you think? A man had two sons. He went to the first and said, 'Son, go and work in the vineyard today.'

²⁹ "'I will not,' he answered, but later he changed his mind and went.

³⁰ "Then the father went to the other son and said the same thing. He answered, 'I will, sir,' but he did not go.

³¹ "Which of the two did what his father wanted?" "The first," they said. Jesus said to them, "Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you.

³² For John came to you in the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes did. And even after you saw this, you did not change your minds and believe him.

³³ "Listen to another parable: There was a landowner who planted a vineyard. He put a wall around it, dug a winepress in it, and built a watchtower. Then he rented it out to tenant farmers and went away on a journey.

³⁴ When the harvest time approached, he sent his servants to the tenants to collect his fruit.

³⁵ But the tenants seized his servants. They beat one, killed another, and stoned a third.

³⁶ Again he sent other servants, more than the first time, and the tenants treated them the same way.

³⁷ Last of all, he sent his son to them, saying, 'They will respect my son.'

³⁸ But when the tenants saw the son, they said to each other, 'This is the heir. Come, let's kill him and take his inheritance.'

³⁹ So they took him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him.

⁴⁰ "Now when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?"

⁴¹ "He will bring those wretches to a wretched end," they replied, "and he will rent the vineyard to other tenants, who will give him his share of the fruit at harvest time."

⁴² Jesus said to them, "Have you never read in the Scriptures:
'The stone the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone;
the Lord has done this,
and it is marvelous in our eyes'?

⁴³ "Therefore I tell you that the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit.

⁴⁴ "Anyone who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces, and anyone it falls on will be crushed."

⁴⁵ When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they knew he was talking about them.

⁴⁶ They wanted to arrest him, but they were afraid of the crowds, because the people regarded him as a prophet.