Matthew 21

¹And when they drew near to Jerusalem and came to Bethphage at the Mount of Olives, then Jesus sent two disciples, ²saying to them, "Go into the village opposite you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied up, and a colt with her. Untie them and bring them to me. ³And if anyone says anything to you, say, 'The Lord has need of them.' And he will send them at once."

⁴Now this took place so that what was spoken through the prophet might be fulfilled:

⁵"Tell the daughter of Zion: Look—your king is coming to you, gentle and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the offspring of a beast of burden."

⁶The disciples went and did just as Jesus instructed them. ⁷They brought the donkey and the colt and placed their cloaks on them, and he sat on the cloaks. ⁸Most of the crowd spread their own cloaks on the road, while others were cutting branches from the trees and spreading them on the road. ⁹And the crowds going ahead of him and those following kept crying out: "Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest heavens!"

¹⁰And when he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was shaken, saying, "Who is this?" ¹¹And the crowds kept saying, "This is the prophet Jesus, from Nazareth of Galilee."

¹²And Jesus entered the temple and drove out all those selling and buying in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those selling doves. ¹³And he says to them, "It is written, 'My house shall be called a house of prayer,' but you are making it a den of bandits."

¹⁴And blind and lame people came to him in the temple, and he healed them. ¹⁵But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the wonders he performed and the children crying out in the temple, "Hosanna to the Son of David," they were indignant ¹⁶and said to him, "Do you hear what these are saying?" Jesus says to them, "Yes. Have you never read, 'Out of the mouths of infants and nursing babies you have fashioned praise'?"

¹⁷And leaving them behind, he went out of the city to Bethany and spent the night there.

¹⁸Early in the morning, returning to the city, he grew hungry. ¹⁹And seeing a fig tree by the road, he went up to it and found nothing on it except leaves only. And he says to it, "May fruit never come from you again." And the fig tree withered at once. ²⁰When the disciples saw this, they were astonished, saying, "How did the fig tree wither so suddenly?" ²¹Jesus answered them, "Truly I tell you, if you have faith and do not waver, not only will you 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. ²²And whatever you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive."

²³When he came into the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people approached him while he was teaching, saying, "By what authority are you doing these things? And who gave you this authority?" ²⁴Jesus answered them, "I too will ask you one question; if you tell me the answer, I will tell you by what authority I do these things. ²⁵The baptism of John—where did it come from? From heaven, or from human origin?" They deliberated among themselves: "If we say, 'From heaven,' he will say to us, 'Then why did you not believe him?' ²⁶But if we say, 'From human origin,' we fear the crowd—for they all regard John as a prophet." ²⁷So they answered Jesus, "We do not know." He said to them, "Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things."

²⁸"But what do you think? A man had two sons. He went to the first and said, 'Son, go work in the vineyard today.' ²⁹He answered, 'I will not'—but later, having a change of heart, he went. ³⁰The father went to the second and said the same. He answered, 'I will, sir'—but did not go. ³¹Which of the two did the will of the father?" They say, "The first." Jesus says to them, "Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you. ³²For John came to you walking in the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him. But the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him. And you, even after seeing this, did not have a change of heart afterward so as to believe him."

³³"Hear another parable. There was a landowner who planted a vineyard. He put a fence around it, dug a winepress in it, and built a watchtower. Then he leased it to tenant farmers and went abroad. ³⁴When the season for fruit drew near, he sent his slaves to the tenant farmers to collect his produce. ³⁵But the tenant farmers seized his slaves: one they beat, one they killed, one they stoned. ³⁶Again he sent other slaves, more than the first group, and they did the same to them. ³⁷Finally he sent his son to them, thinking, 'They will respect my son.' ³⁸But the tenant farmers, seeing the son, said among themselves, 'This is the heir. Come, let us kill him and seize his inheritance!' ³⁹And they grabbed him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him. ⁴⁰When the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenant farmers?"

⁴¹They say to him, "Those wretches—he will bring them to a wretched end, and he will lease the vineyard to other tenant farmers who will render to him the produce at the proper times."

⁴²Jesus says to them, "Have you never read in the Scriptures: 'The stone the builders rejected— this has become the cornerstone. This came from the Lord, and it is marvelous in our eyes'?

⁴³For this reason I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken from you and given to a nation that produces its fruit. ⁴⁴And whoever falls on this stone will be shattered; and whomever it falls upon, it will scatter like chaff."

⁴⁵When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they recognized that he was speaking about them. ⁴⁶And though they sought to arrest him, they feared the crowds, since they regarded him as a prophet.