The chat will start when you send the first message.
1Then Jesus began to speak to the people using stories. He said, “A man planted a vineyard, put up a wall around it, dug a pit for a winepress, and built a lookout tower. Then he rented the vineyard out to some farmers and moved to another place.
2When harvest time came, he sent a servant to the renters to collect some of the vineyard’s fruit from them.
3But they grabbed the servant, beat him up, and sent him away with nothing.
4So the man sent another servant to the renters. They hit that one over the head and treated him badly.
5The man sent a different servant, and the renters killed him. The man kept sending servants, but the renters beat some of them up and killed others.
6“The man had one person left to send. It was his son, who he loved. He finally sent him, thinking, ‘They’ll have to respect my son.’
7“But the renters said to each other, ‘This is the one who will receive all the owner’s property someday. Come on, let’s kill him, and then everything will be ours.’
8So they took him and killed him and tossed his body out of the vineyard.
9“What will the owner of the vineyard do then? He’ll come and kill those renters and give the vineyard to others.
10Haven’t you read what this part of Scripture says?
“ ‘The stone that the builders didn’t accept
has become the most important stone of all.
11The Lord has done this,
and it’s wonderful to see.’ ”
12Then the chief priests, teachers of the law, and elders looked for a way to arrest Jesus, because they knew he’d told the story against them. But they were afraid of the crowd, so they left him and went away.
13Later the religious leaders sent some of the Pharisees and Herodians to Jesus to see if they could trap him with his own words.
14They came to him and said, “Teacher, we know that you’re honest and that you don’t let other people tell you what to do or say, no matter how important they are. Instead, you teach the way of God truthfully. So, according to the law of Moses, is it right to pay the royal tax to Caesar, or not?
15Should we pay, or shouldn’t we?”
But Jesus knew they had bad motives for asking. So he responded, “Why are you trying to trap me? Bring me a silver coin and let me look at it.”
16They brought the coin and he asked them, “Whose picture is on this coin? And whose name and titles?”
“Caesar’s,” they answered.
17Then Jesus told them, “Return to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and return to God what belongs to God.”
They were amazed by this answer.
18Then the Sadducees, who don’t believe that people rise from the dead, came to Jesus with a question.
19“Teacher,” they said, “Moses wrote in the law that if a man dies without having any children, but he leaves a wife behind, his brother has to marry the widow so that she can have children to carry on her late husband’s name.
20There were seven brothers. The first one got married, but he died without having any children.
21The next brother married his widow, but he also died and left no children. The same thing happened to the third one,
22and in fact, all seven brothers were married to her, but none of them left any children. Last of all, the woman died herself.
23When the dead rise, whose wife will she be? All seven of them were married to her.”
24Jesus answered, “You’re going wrong here because you don’t know the Scriptures and you don’t know the power of God.
25When the dead rise, people won’t get married, and parents won’t arrange marriages for their children. Everyone will be like the angels in heaven.
26But as for whether people rise from the dead, haven’t you read the story of the burning bush in the Book of Moses? God said to Moses, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’
27So he isn’t the God of the dead; he’s the God of the living. You don’t even know where to start!”
28One of the teachers of the law had been listening to the discussion and he realized that Jesus had given a good answer. So he came up and asked him, “Which is the most important of all the commandments?”
29Jesus answered, “The most important one is, ‘Listen, Israel, the Lord is our God and the Lord is one.
30Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’
31And there’s a second one: ‘Love your neighbor as you love yourself.’ None of the other commandments are more important than these.”
32“That’s a good answer, teacher,” the man replied. “You’re right to say that God is one and there’s no other God but him.
33And to love God with all your heart and mind and strength, and to love your neighbor as you love yourself, is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.”
34Jesus saw that the man had answered wisely, and he said to him, “You’re not far from the kingdom of God.” From then on, no one dared to ask Jesus any more questions.
35While Jesus was teaching in the temple courtyard, he asked, “Why do the teachers of the law say that the Messiah is the son of David?
36David himself, speaking by the Holy Spirit, said,
“ ‘The Lord said to my Lord,
“Sit at my right hand
until I put your enemies
under your control.” ’
37David calls the Messiah his ‘Lord.’ So how can he be David’s son?”
The large crowd listened to Jesus with delight.
38As he taught, he said, “Watch out for the teachers of the law. They like to walk around in long robes, to be greeted with respect in the marketplace,
39and to have the most important seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at banquets.
40But they cheat widows out of their houses and say long prayers just to show off. God will punish them very severely.”
41Jesus sat down across from the place where people gave their offerings at the temple. He watched as the crowd put their money into the offering boxes. Many rich people threw in large amounts.
42But a poor widow came along and put in two very small copper coins that were worth only a few pennies.
43Jesus called over his disciples and said, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put more into the offering box than all the others.
44They gave a lot of money, but it was extra money they could afford to give. She gave even though she was poor. She put in all she had—everything she needed to live on.”