Matthew 21

¹When they approached 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 and a colt with her; untie them and bring them to me. ³And if anyone says anything to you, you shall say, ‘The Lord has need of them,’ and he will send them at once.” ⁴This happened so that what was spoken through the prophet might be fulfilled: ⁵“Say to the daughter of Zion: ‘Look! Your king is coming to you, gentle in his strength, and mounted on a donkey, even on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden.’”

⁶The disciples went and did just as Jesus had commanded them. ⁷They brought the donkey and the colt and placed their cloaks on them, and he sat upon them. 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. ⁹The crowds—both those leading the way and those following—were shouting: “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!” ¹⁰When he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was shaken, asking, “Who is this?” ¹¹And the crowds were saying, “This is the prophet Jesus, the one from Nazareth of Galilee.”

¹²Jesus entered the temple and drove out all those selling and buying in the temple. He overturned the tables of the money-changers and the benches of those selling doves. ¹³And he said to them, “It is written: ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you are making it ‘a den of bandits.’” ¹⁴The blind and the lame came to him in the temple, and he healed them. ¹⁵But when the chief priests and the legal experts saw the wonders he performed, and the children shouting in the temple, “Hosanna to the Son of David!” they were indignant. ¹⁶They said to him, “Do you hear what these children are saying?” Jesus said to them, “Yes. Have you never read: ‘Out of the mouths of infants and nursing babies you have prepared praise’?” ¹⁷And leaving them behind, he went out of the city to Bethany and spent the night there.

¹⁸Early in the morning, as he was returning to the city, he was hungry. ¹⁹Seeing a single fig tree by the road, he went up to it and found nothing on it but leaves only. He said to it, “May no fruit ever come from you again!” And the fig tree withered instantly. ²⁰When the disciples saw this, they were amazed and said, “How did the fig tree wither so instantly?” ²¹Jesus answered them, “Amen, 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. ²²And everything you ask for in prayer, believing, you will receive.”

²³When he entered the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came to him while he was teaching and said, “By what authority are you doing these things? And who gave you this authority?” ²⁴Jesus answered 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. ²⁵The baptism of John—where did it come from? From heaven or from humans?” They argued among themselves, saying, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will say to us, ‘Then why did you not believe him?’ ²⁶But if we say, ‘From humans,’ we are afraid of the crowd, for everyone holds that John was 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 children. Going to the first, he said, ‘Child, go and work in the vineyard today.’ ²⁹He answered, ‘I will not,’ but later he changed his mind and went. ³⁰Then the father went to the second and said the same thing. He answered, ‘I will, sir,’ but he did not go. ³¹Which of the two did the will of the father?” They said, “The first.” Jesus said to them, “Amen, I tell you: the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going ahead of you into the kingdom of God. ³²For John came to you in the way of justice, and you did not believe him; but the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him. And even after you saw it, you did not later change your minds and believe him.”

³³“Listen to another parable. There was a man, a master of a house, 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 on a journey. ³⁴When the season for fruit drew near, he sent his slaves to the tenant farmers to collect his fruit. ³⁵But the farmers seized his slaves; one they beat, another they killed, and another they stoned. ³⁶Again, he sent other slaves, more than the first, and they treated them the same way. ³⁷Finally, he sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ ³⁸But when the tenant farmers saw the son, they said among themselves, ‘This is the heir. Come, let us kill him and seize his inheritance!’ ³⁹So they took him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him. ⁴⁰Therefore, when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those farmers?” ⁴¹They said to him, “He will bring those miserable men to a miserable end and lease the vineyard to other farmers who will give him the fruit in their seasons.”

⁴²Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures: ‘The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; this was the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes’? ⁴³Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a nation that produces its fruit. ⁴⁴And the one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; but on whomever it falls, it will crush them.” ⁴⁵When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they knew he was speaking about them. ⁴⁶Although they were looking for a way to arrest him, they feared the crowds, because the people held him to be a prophet.