1 As they approached Jerusalem and came to the village of Bethphage near the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples on ahead. 2 “Go into the village ahead of you,” he told them, “and right away ᵖyou will come upon a tethered donkey, with her colt beside her. Untie them and lead them back here to me. 3 And if anyone, to ᵖyou, voices any objections about this, tell him, ‘It is the Lord who needs them.’ At that, he will allow you to bring them without delay.”

4 Now this took place to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet:

6 So, having gone and done just as Jesus had instructed them, 7 the disciples led back the donkey and the colt. They placed their cloaks on the animals, and Jesus sat down on them. 8 Most of the crowd spread their own cloaks on the road. Others, meanwhile, were cutting branches from the trees and spreading them on the road. 9 As for the crowds that were going before Jesus and those that were coming behind him, they kept shouting, “Save us, Messiah! Hail to the Son of David! ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the LORD!’+ ‘Praise God in the heights!’+” 10 As he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was thrown into an uproar. “Who is this?” people were asking.

11 “This is the prophet Jesus,” the crowds answered, “from Nazareth in Galilee!”

12 Then Jesus went into the temple courts and drove out all those who were selling and buying in the Court of the Gentiles, and overturned these things: The tables of the moneychangers and the seats of those who were selling doves. 13 He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house will be called this: A house of prayer.’+ ᵖYou, however, are turning it into ‘a hideout for thieves’+!”

14 The blind and the lame came up to him in the temple courts, and he healed them. 15 Well, when the chief priests and the Torah-experts saw the amazing things he did and the children who were shouting, “Hail to the Messiah, the Son of David!” in the temple courts, they were outraged. 16 “Do you hear what these people are saying?” they asked him.

“Yes,” replied Jesus. “Have ᵖyou never read this: ‘It is from the mouths of small children and nursing infants that you have prepared praise for yourself’+?”17 And leaving them, he went out of the city to Bethany and lodged there for the night.

18 As Jesus was returning to the city early in the morning, he became hungry. 19 Noticing a fig tree near the road, he went up to it but didn’t find any figs on it, only leaves. And he said to it, “May fruit never come from you again!” And the fig tree quickly dried up.

20 When the disciples saw this, they were stunned. “How did the fig tree dry up so quickly?” they asked.

21 Jesus answered them, “Amen, I solemnly tell ᵖyou this: If you have faith and don’t waver with doubt, you will do not only what was done to the fig tree, but will be able to say even to this mountain, ‘Be lifted up and thrown into the sea,’ and it will happen. 22 ᵖYou will receive, in fact, if you have faith, whatever you ask for in prayer.

23 When he entered the temple courts, the chief priests and the elders over the people came up to him while he was teaching and asked, “By what authority is it that ˢyou are doing these things? And who was it that gave you this authority?”

24 “I, too, will ask ᵖyou one question,” replied Jesus, “and if you tell me the answer, I will also tell you by what authority it is that I am doing these things. 25 The baptism performed by John—who authorized it? God, or mere men?”

They began talking the matter over among themselves, saying, “If we answer, ‘God,’ he will say to us, ‘Why then didn’t ᵖyou believe John?’26 On the other hand, if we answer, ‘mere men,’ we had better be afraid of the crowd’s reaction, because they all regard John as a prophet.” 27 So finally they said to Jesus, “We don’t know.”

“Then neither will I myself tell ᵖyou by what authority it is that I am doing these things,” Jesus said to them.

28 “What do ᵖyou think? A man had two sons. He went up to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work in the vineyard today.’

29 “ ‘I don’t want to,’ the son replied. Later on, however, feeling remorse and having had a change of heart, he went.

30 “The man went up to his other son and said the same thing.

“ ‘I will, sir,’ the son answered. But he didn’t go.

31 “Which of the two did his father’s will?”

“The first,” they replied.

Jesus said to them, “Amen, I solemnly tell ᵖyou this: Even the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going to enter the Kingdom of God ahead of you!32 For John came to ᵖyou with the path of righteousness, but you didn’t believe him. The tax collectors and the prostitutes, however, themselves did believe him. But as for ᵖyou, although you saw this, you felt no remorse and had no change of heart later on so as to believe him.

33 “Listen to another parable: There was this man, a master of a household, who planted a vineyard. He put a fence around it and dug a winepress in it and built a watchtower. Then he leased the vineyard to tenant farmers and went abroad.

34 “Now when the time for the grape harvest drew near, the master of the household sent his slaves to the tenant farmers to collect his portion of the fruit. 35 But the tenants seized his slaves; one they beat, another they killed, and still another they stoned. 36 Again he sent other slaves, more than the first time, and the tenants treated them the same way. 37 Finally, he sent his son to them. ‘Surely they’ll respect my son,’ he thought. 38 The tenants, however, when they saw his son, said to one another, ‘This is the heir! Come on, let’s kill him and get his inheritance!’ 39 So they seized him and threw him outside the vineyard and killed him. 40 Now then, when the master of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?”

41 “Those horrible wretches he will put to a very horrible death,” they replied, “and the vineyard he will lease to other tenants, who will give him the fruit at the times appointed for harvest.”

42 Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures:

45 When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they realized that they were the ones whom he was talking about. 46 Although they wanted to have him arrested, they were afraid of the crowds, because the people regarded Jesus as a prophet.