Lu-ca 20

A question about authority

¹One day, as Jesus was teaching the people in the temple and telling them the good news, the chief priests and the scribes came up to him, together with the elders. ²“Tell us,” they said to him, “what authority do you have to do these things? Who is it that gave you this authority?” ³He answered them, “I too will ask you a question. Tell me this: ⁴John’s baptism: did it come from heaven, or from people?” ⁵They discussed it among themselves and said, “If we answer, ‘From heaven,’ he will ask, ‘Then why did you not believe him?’ ⁶But if we answer, ‘From people,’ the whole crowd will stone us, because they are sure John was a prophet.” ⁷So they answered that they did not know where it came from. ⁸Jesus said to them, “Then I am not going to tell you either by what authority I do these things.”

The tenant farmers and the owner’s son

⁹Then he told the people this parable: “A man planted a vineyard and let it out to tenants. Then he went abroad and stayed away a long while. ¹⁰When harvest time came, he sent a servant to the tenants to collect his share of the vineyard’s crop. But the tenants beat him and sent him back with nothing. ¹¹So he sent a second servant, but they beat this one as well, insulted him, and sent him off with nothing. ¹²Then he sent a third, and they wounded this one and threw him out. ¹³Then the master of the vineyard said, ‘What am I to do? I will send my son, the one I love. It may be that they will show him respect.’ ¹⁴But the tenants saw him coming and talked it over among themselves. ‘This is the one who will inherit,’ they said to each other. ‘If we kill him, the property will be ours.’ ¹⁵So they threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. So what will the master of the vineyard do to them? ¹⁶He will come and put these tenants to death, and give the vineyard to others.”^a Hearing this, the people cried out, “May that never happen!” ¹⁷Jesus looked straight at them and said, “Then what is the meaning of the words that are written, ‘The stone the builders discarded has become the main stone at the corner’?^{b 18}All who fall on that stone will be smashed, and if it falls on someone, it will grind that person to dust.” ¹⁹The scribes and the chief priests wanted to get their hands on him then and there, but they were afraid of the people. They understood that he had aimed this parable at them.

Paying tribute to Caesar

²⁰They watched him closely and sent agents who played the part of honest, devout men. Their aim was to seize on some word of his and use it to deliver him into the governor’s power and jurisdiction. ²¹So they put a question to him: “Teacher, we are sure that you are correct in what you say and teach. No one’s rank sways you, and you teach the way of God with truth. ²²Does the law allow us to pay tribute to Caesar, or not?” ²³But he saw through their trickery and said to them,^{c 24}“Let me see a denarius. Whose likeness and whose inscription does it carry?” They answered, “Caesar’s.” ²⁵He said to them, “Then pay back to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and to God what belongs to God.” ²⁶So with the people looking on, they found nothing in his words to seize on. His answer left them amazed, and they had nothing more to say.

A question about the resurrection

²⁷Then some Sadducees came up, men who say there is no resurrection, and put a question to him: ²⁸“Teacher, Moses gave us this law in writing: when someone’s brother dies married but without children, the surviving brother is to marry the widow and raise children for the one who died. ²⁹There were once seven brothers. The first married and died without having a child. ³⁰Then the second ³¹and the third married her, and so on with all seven: each one died and left no children. ³²Last of all, the woman died too. ³³So when the dead rise, whose wife will she be? All seven of them had her as a wife.”

³⁴Jesus answered them, “In this age, men take wives and women are given to husbands. ³⁵But those who are judged worthy to have a share in the age to come and in the rising from the dead neither take wives nor are given to husbands. ³⁶They will never die again, for they are equal to the angels; and having had their share in the resurrection, they are children of God. ³⁷And that the dead are raised, even Moses made plain in the account of the burning bush, where he calls the Lord ‘the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.’ ³⁸God is not a God of dead people but of living people, since all of them live in relation to him.” ³⁹Some of the scribes responded, “Teacher, that was a fine answer.” ⁴⁰From then on they did not dare put any more questions to him.

David’s son and David’s Lord

⁴¹Then he said to them, “How can people say that Christ is the son of David? ⁴²David himself says in the book of Psalms, ‘The Lord said to my Lord: “Take your seat at my right hand ⁴³until I put your enemies under your feet as a footstool.”’ ⁴⁴So if David calls him ‘Lord,’ how can he be David’s son?” ⁴⁵In the hearing of all the people, he said to the disciples, ⁴⁶“Be on your guard against the scribes. They like to parade in long robes. They love it when people greet them in the marketplaces, and they love the front seats in the synagogues and the best couches at dinners. ⁴⁷They swallow up the property of widows, and they pray at great length to cover it up. These men will receive the heavier judgment.”