Matthew 21

¹And when they drew near to Jerusalem and came to Bethphage, to the Mount of Olives, then Jesus sent two disciples,

²saying to them, 'Go into the village before you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her; having untied them, bring them to me.'

³And if anyone says anything to you, you shall say that the Lord has need of them, and immediately he will send them.

⁴Now all this has come to pass, that it might be fulfilled what was spoken through the prophet, saying:

⁵Say to the daughter of Zion, 'Behold, your King comes to you, gentle and mounted on a donkey, and on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden.'

⁶So the disciples went and did just as Jesus had directed them,

⁷They brought the donkey and the colt, and put their cloaks on them, and he sat on them.

⁸Now the very great crowd spread their own cloaks on the road, and others were cutting branches from the trees and spreading them on the road.

⁹Now the crowds who went before him and those who followed were crying out, saying, 'Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is the one coming in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!'

¹⁰And when he entered into Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred, saying, 'Who is this?'

¹¹And the crowds were saying, 'This is the prophet Jesus, the one from Nazareth of Galilee.'

¹²And Jesus entered into the temple of God and cast out all those selling and buying in the temple, and the tables of the money changers He overturned and the seats of those selling the doves.

¹³And he says to them, 'It has been written, My house shall be called a house of prayer; but you make it a den of robbers.'

¹⁴And the blind and the lame came to him in the temple, and he healed them.

¹⁵But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the wonders that He did, and the children crying out in the temple and saying, 'Hosanna to the Son of David,' they were indignant.

¹⁶and said to him, 'Do you hear what these are saying?' And Jesus says to them, 'Yes; have you never read, Out of the mouth of infants and nursing babies you have prepared praise?'

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

¹⁸Now early in the morning, as he was returning to the city, he became hungry.

¹⁹And seeing one fig tree along the road, He came to it and found nothing on it except leaves only, and He says to it, 'No longer shall there ever be fruit from you forever.' And immediately the fig tree withered.

²⁰And seeing it, the disciples marveled, saying, 'How did the fig tree wither so quickly?'

²¹And Jesus answering said to them, 'Amen I say to you, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only the deed of the fig tree will you do, but even if you say to this mountain, “Be taken up and be cast into the sea,” it will come to pass.'

²²And all things, whatever you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive.

²³And when He had come into the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came to Him as He was teaching, saying, 'By what authority are You doing these things? And who gave You this authority?'

²⁴But Jesus answering said to them, 'I also will ask you one thing, which if you tell me, I also will tell you by what authority I do these things.'

²⁵The baptism of John, from where was it? From heaven or from men? But they were reasoning among themselves, saying, 'If we say, From heaven, he will say to us, Why then did you not believe him?'

²⁶But if we say, 'From men,' we fear the crowd, for they all hold John as a prophet.

²⁷And answering Jesus they said, 'We do not know.' He also said to them, 'Neither do I tell you by what authority I do these things.'

²⁸But what do you think? A man had two children, and coming to the first he said, 'Child, go work today in my vineyard.'

²⁹But he answering said, 'I will not'; yet afterward, having changed his mind, he went.

³⁰And coming to the other he said likewise. And he answering said, 'I will, sir,' and did not go.

³¹Which of the two did the will of the father?' They say to him, 'The first.' Jesus says to them, 'Truly I say to you that the tax collectors and the prostitutes go before you into the kingdom of God.'

³²For John came to you in the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him; and you, having seen it, did not even afterward have a change of heart so as to believe him.

³³Hear another parable: There was a man, a master of a house, who planted a vineyard and put a fence around it and dug a winepress in it and built a tower, and rented it out to farmers and went abroad.

³⁴And when the season of the fruits drew near, he sent his servants to the tenant farmers to receive his fruits.

³⁵And the farmers, taking his slaves, beat one, and killed another, and stoned another.

³⁶Again he sent other servants, more than the first, and they did to them likewise.

³⁷But afterward he sent to them his son, saying, '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 let us have his inheritance.'

³⁹And taking him, they cast him out of the vineyard and killed him.

⁴⁰When therefore the master of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenant farmers?

⁴¹They say to him, 'He will wretchedly destroy those wretches, and will rent out the vineyard to other farmers, who will give him the fruits in their seasons.'

⁴²Jesus says to them, 'Did you never read in the Scriptures: “The stone which the builders rejected, this has become the head of the corner; from the Lord this came to be, and it is marvelous in our eyes”?'

⁴³Therefore I say to you that the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a nation producing its fruits.

⁴⁴And the one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; but on whomever it falls, it will crush him.

⁴⁵And when the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they knew that He was speaking about them.

⁴⁶And seeking to seize him, they feared the crowds, because they held him to be a prophet.