Matthew 22:15–45

The Question about Paying Taxes

¹⁵Then the Pharisees went and plotted to entrap him in what he said. ¹⁶So they sent their disciples to him, along with the Herodians, saying, “Teacher, we know that you are sincere, and teach the way of God in accordance with truth, and show deference to no one, for you do not regard people with partiality.^{* 17}Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not?”^{* 18}But Jesus, aware of their malice, said, “Why are you putting me to the test, you hypocrites? ¹⁹Show me the coin used for the tax.” And they brought him a denarius. ²⁰Then he said to them, “Whose head is this and whose title?” ²¹They answered, “Caesar’s.” Then he said to them, “Give therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s.”^{* 22}When they heard this, they were amazed, and they left him and went away.

The Question about the Resurrection

²³The same day some Sadducees came to him saying there is no resurrection,^u and they asked him a question:^{* 24}“Teacher, Moses said, ‘If a man dies childless, his brother shall marry the widow and raise up children for his brother.’^{* 25}Now there were seven brothers among us; the first married and died childless, leaving the widow to his brother. ²⁶The second did the same, so also the third, down to the seventh. ²⁷Last of all, the woman herself died. ²⁸In the resurrection, then, whose wife of the seven will she be? For all of them had married her.”

²⁹Jesus answered them, “You are wrong because you know neither the scriptures nor the power of God.^{* 30}For in the resurrection people neither marry nor are given in marriage but are like angels of God^v in heaven. ³¹And as for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God, ³²‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is God not of the dead but of the living.”^{* 33}And when the crowds heard it, they were astounded at his teaching.^*

The Greatest Commandment

³⁴When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, ³⁵and one of them, an expert in the law, asked him a question to test him.^{* 36}“Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” ³⁷He said to him, “ ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’^{* 38}This is the greatest and first commandment. ³⁹And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’^{* 40}On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”^*

The Question about David’s Son

⁴¹Now while the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them this question: ⁴²“What do you think of the Messiah?^w Whose son is he?” They said to him, “The son of David.”^{* 43}He said to them, “How is it then that David by the Spirit^x calls him Lord, saying,

⁴⁴‘The Lord said to my Lord,

“Sit at my right hand,

until I put your enemies under your feet” ’?^*

⁴⁵“If David thus calls him Lord, how can he be his son?”