Matthew 21:12–46

Jesus Cleanses the Temple

¹²Then Jesus entered the temple^p and drove out all who were selling and buying in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves.^{* 13}He said to them, “It is written,

‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’

but you are making it a den of robbers.”^*

¹⁴The blind and the lame came to him in the temple, and he cured them. ¹⁵But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the amazing things that he did and heard^q the children crying out in the temple and saying, “Hosanna to the Son of David,” they became angry^{* 16}and said to him, “Do you hear what these are saying?” Jesus said to them, “Yes; have you never read,

‘Out of the mouths of infants and nursing babies

you have prepared praise for yourself’?”^*

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

Jesus Curses the Fig Tree

¹⁸In the morning, when he returned to the city, he was hungry. ¹⁹And seeing a fig tree by the side of the road, he went to it and found nothing at all on it but leaves. Then he said to it, “May no fruit ever come from you again!” And the fig tree withered at once. ²⁰When the disciples saw it, they were amazed, saying, “How did the fig tree wither at once?” ²¹Jesus answered them, “Truly I tell you, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only will you do what has been done to the fig tree, but even if you say to this mountain, ‘Be lifted up and thrown into the sea,’ it will be done.^{* 22}Whatever you ask for in prayer with faith, you will receive.”^*

The Authority of Jesus Questioned

²³When he entered the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came to him as he was teaching and said, “By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?”^{* 24}Jesus said to them, “I will also ask you one question; if you tell me the answer, then I will also tell you by what authority I do these things. ²⁵Did the baptism of John come from heaven, or was it of human origin?” And they argued with one another, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will say to us, ‘Why, then, did you not believe him?’ ²⁶But if we say, ‘Of human origin,’ we are afraid of the crowd, for all regard John as a prophet.”^{* 27}So they answered Jesus, “We do not know.” And he said to them, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things.

The Parable of the Two Sons

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}He answered, ‘I will not,’ but later he changed his mind and went. ³⁰The father^r went to the second and said the same, and he answered, ‘I go, sir,’ but he did not go. ³¹Which of the two did the will of his father?” They said, “The first.” Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into 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 believed him, and even after you saw it you did not change your minds and believe him.^*

The Parable of the Wicked Tenants

³³“Listen to another parable. There was a landowner who planted a vineyard, put a fence around it, dug a winepress in it, and built a watchtower. Then he leased it to tenants and went away.^{* 34}When the harvest time had come, he sent his slaves to the tenants to collect his produce.^{* 35}But the tenants seized his slaves and beat one, killed another, and stoned another.^{* 36}Again he sent other slaves, more than the first, and they treated them in the same way. ³⁷Then he sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ ³⁸But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, ‘This is the heir; come, let us kill him and get his inheritance.’^{* 39}So they seized him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him. ⁴⁰Now when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?” ⁴¹They said to him, “He will put those wretches to a miserable death and lease the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the produce at the harvest time.”^*

⁴²Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the scriptures:

‘The stone that the builders rejected

has become the cornerstone;^s

this was the Lord’s doing,

and it is amazing in our eyes’?^*

⁴³“Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces its fruits.^{* 44}The one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces, and it will crush anyone on whom it falls.”^t

⁴⁵When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they realized that he was speaking about them. ⁴⁶They wanted to arrest him, but they feared the crowds, because they regarded him as a prophet.^*