Matthew 21

1And when they came near to Jerusalem and came to Bethphage, to 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, saying:

5Tell the daughter of Zion, ‘Look, your king is coming 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 instructed them.

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

8Most of the crowd spread their garments on the road, and others were cutting branches from the trees and spreading them on the road.

9And the crowds going ahead of him and those following were crying out, saying, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!”

10And when he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred up, saying, “Who is this?”

11And the crowds were saying, “This is the prophet Jesus, from Nazareth in Galilee.”

12And Jesus entered the temple courts and drove out all those selling and buying in the temple courts, and he overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those selling doves.

13And he says to them, “It is written, ‘My house will be called a house of prayer,’ but you are making 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 wonderful things that he did, and the children crying out in the temple and saying, “Hosanna to the Son of David,” they were indignant.

16And they said to him, “Do you hear what these are saying?” But 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 stayed there overnight.

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

19And seeing a fig tree by the road, he came up to it and found nothing on it except leaves alone. And he said to it, “May no fruit ever come from you again.” And the fig tree withered at once.

20And when the disciples saw it, they marveled, saying, “How did the fig tree wither immediately?”

21But Jesus answered them, “Truly I say to 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 taken up and thrown into the sea,’ it will happen.”

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

23And when he came into the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came up to him while he was teaching and said, “By what authority are you doing these things? And who gave you this authority?”

24But Jesus answered them, “I also will ask you one question, and if you answer 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? And 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 regard John as a prophet.

27So they answered Jesus, “We do not know.” He also said to them, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things.”

28But what do you think? A man had two children. Going to the first, he said, ‘Child, go work today in the vineyard.’

29But he answered, ‘I do not want to.’ But later he changed his mind and went.

30Then he came to the second and said the same. And 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, “Truly I say to 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 righteousness, and you did not believe him; but the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him. But even after seeing this, you did not afterward change your minds so as to believe him.

33Listen to another parable: There was a landowner who planted a vineyard and put a fence around it and dug a winepress in it and built a tower, and leased it to tenant farmers, and went away.

34But when the season for the fruits had drawn near, he sent his servants to the tenant farmers to collect his fruits.

35And the tenant farmers took his servants; one they beat, another they killed, and another they stoned.

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

37But later 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.’

39And 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 miserably destroy those wretches, and he will lease the vineyard to other farmers, who will give him the fruits in their seasons.”

42Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures: ‘The stone that the builders rejected—this one has become the cornerstone. This came from the Lord, 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 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 although they were seeking to arrest him, they feared the crowds, because they regarded him as a prophet.