The Living Bible (306 page)
Authors: Inc. Tyndale House Publishers
Tags: #BIBLES / Other Translations / Text
As Jesus and the disciples approached Jerusalem, and were near the town of Bethphage on the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two of them into the village ahead.
2
“Just as you enter,”
he said,
“you will see a donkey tied there, with its colt beside it. Untie them and bring them here.
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If anyone asks you what you are doing, just say, ‘The Master needs them,’ and there will be no trouble.”
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This was done to fulfill the ancient prophecy,
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“Tell Jerusalem her King is coming to her, riding humbly on a donkey’s colt!”
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The two disciples did as Jesus said,
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and brought the animals to him and threw their garments over the colt
*
for him to ride on.
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And some in the crowd threw down their coats along the road ahead of him, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them out before him.
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Then the crowds surged on ahead and pressed along behind, shouting, “God bless King David’s Son!” . . . “God’s Man is here!”
*
. . . “Bless him, Lord!” . . . “Praise God in highest heaven!”
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The entire city of Jerusalem was stirred as he entered. “Who is this?” they asked.
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And the crowds replied, “It’s Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth up in Galilee.”
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Jesus went into the Temple, drove out the merchants, and knocked over the money changers’ tables and the stalls of those selling doves.
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“The Scriptures say my Temple is a place of prayer,”
he declared,
“but you have turned it into a den of thieves.”
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And now the blind and crippled came to him, and he healed them there in the Temple.
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But when the chief priests and other Jewish leaders saw these wonderful miracles and heard even the little children in the Temple shouting, “God bless the Son of David,” they were disturbed and indignant and asked him, “Do you hear what these children are saying?”
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“Yes,”
Jesus replied.
“Didn’t you ever read the Scriptures? For they say, ‘Even little babies shall praise him!’”
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Then he returned to Bethany, where he stayed overnight.
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In the morning, as he was returning to Jerusalem, he was hungry
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and noticed a fig tree beside the road. He went over to see if there were any figs, but there were only leaves. Then he said to it,
“Never bear fruit again!”
And soon
*
the fig tree withered up.
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The disciples were utterly amazed and asked, “How did the fig tree wither so quickly?”
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Then Jesus told them,
“Truly, if you have faith and don’t doubt, you can do things like this and much more. You can even say to this Mount of Olives, ‘Move over into the ocean,’ and it will.
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You can get anything
—anything
you ask for in prayer—if you believe.”
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When he had returned to the Temple and was teaching, the chief priests and other Jewish leaders came up to him and demanded to know by whose authority he had thrown out the merchants the day before.
*
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“I’ll tell you if you answer one question first,”
Jesus replied.
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“Was John the Baptist sent from God or not?”
They talked it over among themselves. “If we say, ‘From God,’” they said, “then he will ask why we didn’t believe what John said.
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And if we deny that God sent him, we’ll be mobbed, for the crowd all think he was a prophet.”
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So they finally replied, “We don’t know!”
And Jesus said,
“Then I won’t answer your question either.
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“But what do you think about this? A man with two sons told the older boy, ‘Son, go out and work on the farm today.’
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‘I won’t,’ he answered, but later he changed his mind and went.
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Then the father told the youngest, ‘You go!’ and he said, ‘Yes, sir, I will.’ But he didn’t.
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Which of the two was obeying his father?”
They replied, “The first, of course.”
Then Jesus explained his meaning:
“Surely evil men and prostitutes will get into the Kingdom before you do.
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For John the Baptist told you to repent and turn to God, and you wouldn’t, while very evil men and prostitutes did. And even when you saw this happening, you refused to repent, and so you couldn’t believe.
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“Now listen to this story: A certain landowner planted a vineyard with a hedge around it, and built a platform for the watchman, then leased the vineyard to some farmers on a sharecrop basis, and went away to live in another country.
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“At the time of the grape harvest he sent his agents to the farmers to collect his share.
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But the farmers attacked his men, beat one, killed one, and stoned another.
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“Then he sent a larger group of his men to collect for him, but the results were the same.
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Finally the owner sent his son, thinking they would surely respect him.
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“But when these farmers saw the son coming, they said among themselves, ‘Here comes the heir to this estate; come on, let’s kill him and get it for ourselves!’
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So they dragged him out of the vineyard and killed him.
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“When the owner returns, what do you think he will do to those farmers?”
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The Jewish leaders replied, “He will put the wicked men to a horrible death and lease the vineyard to others who will pay him promptly.”
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Then Jesus asked them,
“Didn’t you ever read in the Scriptures: ‘The stone rejected by the builders has been made the honored cornerstone;
*
how remarkable! what an amazing thing the Lord has done’?
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“What I mean is that the Kingdom of God shall be taken away from you, and given to a nation that will give God his share of the crop.
*
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All who stumble on this rock of truth
*
shall be broken, but those it falls on will be scattered as dust.”
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When the chief priests and other Jewish leaders realized that Jesus was talking about them—that they were the farmers in his story—
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they wanted to get rid of him but were afraid to try because of the crowds, for they accepted Jesus as a prophet.
Jesus told several other stories to show what the Kingdom of Heaven is like.
“For instance,”
he said,
“it can be illustrated by the story of a king who prepared a great wedding dinner for his son.
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Many guests were invited, and when the banquet was ready, he sent messengers to notify everyone that it was time to come. But all refused!
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So he sent other servants to tell them, ‘Everything is ready and the roast is in the oven. Hurry!’
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“But the guests he had invited merely laughed and went on about their business, one to his farm, another to his store;
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others beat up his messengers and treated them shamefully, even killing some of them.
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“Then the angry king sent out his army and destroyed the murderers and burned their city.
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And he said to his servants, ‘The wedding feast is ready, and the guests I invited aren’t worthy of the honor.
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Now go out to the street corners and invite everyone you see.’
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“So the servants did, and brought in all they could find, good and bad alike; and the banquet hall was filled with guests.
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But when the king came in to meet the guests, he noticed a man who wasn’t wearing the wedding robe provided for him.
*
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“‘Friend,’ he asked, ‘how does it happen that you are here without a wedding robe?’ And the man had no reply.
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“Then the king said to his aides, ‘Bind him hand and foot and throw him out into the outer darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth.’
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For many are called, but few are chosen.”
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Then the Pharisees met together to try to think of some way to trap Jesus into saying something for which they could arrest him.
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They decided to send some of their men along with the Herodians
*
to ask him this question: “Sir, we know you are very honest and teach the truth regardless of the consequences, without fear or favor.
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Now tell us, is it right to pay taxes to the Roman government or not?”
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But Jesus saw what they were after.
“You hypocrites!”
he exclaimed.
“Who are you trying to fool with your trick questions?
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Here, show me a coin.”
And they handed him a penny.
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“Whose picture is stamped on it?”
he asked them.
“And whose name is this beneath the picture?”
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“Caesar’s,” they replied.
“Well, then,” he said, “give it to Caesar if it is his, and give God everything that belongs to God.”
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His reply surprised and baffled them, and they went away.
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But that same day some of the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection after death, came to him and asked,
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“Sir, Moses said that if a man died without children, his brother should marry the widow and their children would get all the dead man’s property.
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Well, we had among us a family of seven brothers. The first of these men married and then died, without children, so his widow became the second brother’s wife.
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This brother also died without children, and the wife was passed to the next brother, and so on until she had been the wife of each of them.
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And then she also died.
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So whose wife will she be in the resurrection? For she was the wife of all seven of them!”
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But Jesus said,
“Your error is caused by your ignorance of the Scriptures and of God’s power!
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For in the resurrection there is no marriage; everyone is as the angels in heaven.
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But now, as to whether there is a resurrection of the dead—don’t you ever read the Scriptures? Don’t you realize that God was speaking directly to you when he said,
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‘I
am
the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob’? So God is not the God of the dead, but of the
living.”
*
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The crowds were profoundly impressed by his answers—
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but not the Pharisees! When they heard that he had routed the Sadducees with his reply, they thought up a fresh question of their own to ask him. One of them, a lawyer, spoke up:
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“Sir, which is the most important command in the laws of Moses?”
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Jesus replied,
“‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind.’
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This is the first and greatest commandment. The second most important is similar: ‘Love your neighbor as much as you love yourself.’
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All the other commandments and all the demands of the prophets stem from these two laws and are fulfilled if you obey them. Keep only these and you will find that you are obeying all the others.”
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Then, surrounded by the Pharisees, he asked them a question:
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“What about the Messiah? Whose son is he?”
“The son of David,” they replied.
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“Then why does David, speaking under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, call him ‘Lord’?”
Jesus asked.
“For David said,
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‘God said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand until I put your enemies beneath your feet.’
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Since David called him ‘Lord,’ how can he be merely his son?”
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They had no answer. And after that no one dared ask him any more questions.