Matthew

When they came near to Jerusalem and came to Bethsphage,† to the Mount of Olives, then Jesus sent two disciples,

saying to them, “Go into the village that is opposite you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her. Untie them and bring them to me.

If anyone says anything to you, you shall say, ‘The Lord needs them,’ and immediately he will send them.”

The disciples went and did just as Jesus commanded them,

and brought the donkey and the colt and laid their clothes on them; and he sat on them.

A very great multitude spread their clothes on the road. Others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road.

The multitudes who went in front of him, and those who followed, kept shouting, “Hosanna‡ to the son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!” *

Jesus entered into the temple of God and drove out all of those who sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the money changers’ tables and the seats of those who sold the doves.

He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’* but you have made it a den of robbers!”*

The lame and the blind came to him in the temple, and he healed them.

But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the wonderful things that he did, and the children who were crying in the temple and saying, “Hosanna to the son of David!” they were indignant,

and said to him, “Do you hear what these are saying?” Jesus said to them, “Yes. Did you never read, ‘Out of the mouth of children and nursing babies, you have perfected praise’?”*

Now in the morning, as he returned to the city, he was hungry.

Seeing a fig tree by the road, he came to it and found nothing on it but leaves. He said to it, “Let there be no fruit from you forever!” Immediately the fig tree withered away.

Jesus answered them, “Most certainly I tell you, if you have faith and don’t doubt, you will not only do what was done to the fig tree, but even if you told this mountain, ‘Be taken up and cast into the sea,’ it would be done.

All things, whatever you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive.”

Jesus answered them, “I also will ask you one question, which if you tell me, I likewise will tell you by what authority I do these things.

The baptism of John, where was it from? From heaven or from men?” They reasoned with themselves, saying, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will ask us, ‘Why then did you not believe him?’

But if we say, ‘From men,’ we fear the multitude, for all hold John as a prophet.”

They answered Jesus, and said, “We don’t know.” He also said to them, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things.

But what do you think? A man had two sons, and he came to the first, and said, ‘Son, go work today in my vineyard.’

He answered, ‘I will not,’ but afterward he changed his mind, and went.

He came to the second, and said the same thing. He answered, ‘I’m going, sir,’ but he didn’t go.

Which of the two did the will of his father?” They said to him, “The first.” Jesus said to them, “Most certainly I tell you that the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering into God’s Kingdom before you.

“Hear another parable. There was a man who was a master of a household who planted a vineyard, set a hedge about it, dug a wine press in it, built a tower, leased it out to farmers, and went into another country.

When the season for the fruit came near, he sent his servants to the farmers to receive his fruit.

The farmers took his servants, beat one, killed another, and stoned another.

Again, he sent other servants more than the first; and they treated them the same way.

But afterward he sent to them his son, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’

But the farmers, when they saw the son, said among themselves, ‘This is the heir. Come, let’s kill him and seize his inheritance.’

So they took him and threw him out of the vineyard, then killed him.

When therefore the lord of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those farmers?”