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 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 are to say, ‘The Lord has need of them,’ and he will send them at once.”
4Now this took place so that what was spoken through the prophet might be fulfilled, saying:
5“Say to the daughter of Zion, ‘Behold, 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 as Jesus had commanded them.
7They brought the donkey and the colt, and they laid their cloaks on them, and he sat on them.
8The very large crowd spread their own cloaks on the road, while others were cutting branches from the trees and spreading them on the road.
9And the crowds who went before him and those who followed were shouting, saying, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!”
10And when he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was shaken, saying, “Who is this?”
11And the crowds were saying, “This is the prophet Jesus, from Nazareth of Galilee.”
12And Jesus entered the temple and drove out all those who were selling and buying in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who were selling doves.
13And he said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall 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 children are saying?” And Jesus said 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 in the morning, as he was returning to the city, he became hungry.
19And seeing a single fig tree by the road, he went to it and found nothing on it but leaves only. And he said to it, “May no fruit ever come from you again!” And the fig tree withered at once.
20When the disciples saw it, they were amazed, saying, “How did the fig tree wither so quickly?”
21And Jesus answered and said to 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 had come into the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came to him as he was teaching and said, “By what authority are you doing these things? And who gave you this authority?”
24Jesus answered and said to them, “I also will ask you one question, and if you tell me the answer, I also will tell you by what authority I do these things.
25The baptism of John—where was it from? From heaven or from men?” And they began to reason among themselves, saying, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will say to us, ‘Then why did you not believe him?’
26But if we say, ‘From men,’ we are afraid of the crowd, for they all hold John as a prophet.”
27So they answered Jesus and said, “We do not know.” And he himself said to them, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things.
28“But what do you think? A man had two children. And he went to the first and said, ‘Child, go work today in the vineyard.’
29And he answered and said, ‘I will, sir,’ but he did not go.
30And he went to the second and said the same. And he answered and said, ‘I will not,’ but afterward he changed his mind and went.
31“Which of the two did the will of the father?” They said, “The latter.” Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you.
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, even after seeing, did not later change your minds to believe him.
33“Hear another parable. There was a landowner who planted a vineyard, and he put a fence around it, dug a winepress in it, and built a tower. Then he leased it to tenant farmers and went on a journey.
34When the harvest time drew near, he sent his servants to the tenant farmers to collect his fruit.
35And the tenant farmers seized his servants; one they beat, another they killed, and another they stoned.
36Again he sent other servants, more than the first, 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 get his inheritance.’
39And they seized him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him.
40Therefore, when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenant farmers?”
41They said to him, “He will bring those wretches to a wretched end, and he will lease the vineyard to other tenant 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 has become the head of the corner; this came from the Lord, and it is marvelous in our eyes’?
43Therefore I tell you that the kingdom of God will be taken from you and given to a nation that produces its fruit.
44And whoever falls on this stone will be broken to pieces, but on whomever it falls, it will crush him.”
45When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they knew that he was speaking about them.
46And though they were seeking to arrest him, they feared the crowds, because they regarded him as a prophet.
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