Jesus Received as King in Jerusalem
Matthew 21When they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethphage, at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, “Go into the village that is ahead of y’all. Immediately y’all will find a donkey tied there, and a colt with her. Y’all untie them and bring them to me. If anyone says anything to y’all, y’all say, ‘The Lord needs them,’ and he will send them at once.”
This took place to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet,
“Y’all tell the daughter of Zion, See, your King comes to you, humble, and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”+Zech 9:9The disciples went and did just as Jesus commanded them. They brought the donkey and the colt and laid their cloaks on them, and he sat on them. A very large crowd spread their clothes on the road. Others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. The crowds who went in front of him and those who followed were shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord [YHWH]! Hosanna in the highest!” +Psa 118:26
When he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred up, saying, “Who is this?”
The crowds were saying, “This is the prophet Jesus, from Nazareth in Galilee.”
Cleansing the Temple
Jesus entered the temple area and drove out all those who were buying and selling in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who were selling doves. He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house will be called a house of prayer,’+Isa 56:7 but y’all are making it into a den of robbers!”+Jer 7:11
The lame and the blind came to him in the temple, and he healed them. But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the wonderful things that he did, and the children who were shouting in the temple and saying, “Hosanna to the son of David!” they were indignant. They asked him, “Do you hear what these children are saying?”
Jesus said to them, “Yes. Have y’all not read, ‘Out of the mouth of children and nursing babies, you have prepared praise for yourself?’”+Psa 8:2
Then he left them, went out of the city to Bethany, and spent the night there.
Jesus Curses a Fig Tree
Now in the morning, as he returned to the city, he was hungry. Seeing a fig tree by the road, he came to it and found nothing on it but leaves. Then he said to it, “Let there be no fruit from you forever!”
Immediately the fig tree withered.
When the disciples saw this, they marveled, saying, “How did the fig tree wither so quickly?”
Jesus answered them, “Truly I tell y’all, if you* have faith and don’t doubt, y’all will not only do what was done to the fig tree, but even if y’all say to this mountain, ‘Be lifted up and cast into the sea,’ it will be done. All things you ask for in prayer, if you believe, you will receive.”
Jesus Outwits Questions about His Authority
When he had entered the temple courts, the chief priests and the elders of the people came to him while he was teaching, and said, “By what authority do you do these things? Who gave you this authority?”
Jesus answered them, “I also will ask y’all one question, and if y’all answer me, I will tell y’all by what authority I do these things. Where did the baptism of John come from? From heaven or of human origin?”
They discussed it among themselves, saying, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will ask us, ‘Then why didn’t y’all believe him?’ But if we say, ‘Of human origin,’ we fear the crowd, for all hold John as a prophet.” They answered Jesus and said, “We don’t know.”
He also said to them, “Neither will I tell y’all by what authority I do these things.
The Parable of the Two Sons
But what do y’all think? There was a man who had two sons. He went to the first, and said, ‘Son, go work today in the vineyard.’ He answered, ‘I will not,’ but later he changed his mind, and went. Then he went to the second, and said the same thing. The son answered, ‘I will, sir,’ but he didn’t go. Which of the two did the will of his father?”
They said to him, “The first.”
Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell y’all that the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering into the Empire of God ahead of y’all. For John came to y’all in the way of righteousness, and y’all didn’t believe him. But the tax collectors and the prostitutes did believe him. And even after seeing this, y’all didn’t repent and believe him.
The Parable of the Tenants
“Y’all listen to another parable: There was a human landowner who planted a vineyard. He placed a wall around it, dug a wine press in it, and built a watchtower. Then he leased it out to tenant farmers and went on a journey. When harvest time came near, he sent his servants to the tenants to receive his fruit. The farmers took his servants, beat one, killed another, and stoned a third. Again he sent another group of servants larger than the first, and they treated them the same way. Finally he sent them his son, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ But the tenants, when they saw the son, said among themselves, ‘This is the heir. Come, let’s kill him and take his inheritance.’ So they took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him.
“Therefore, when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?”
They told him, “He will bring those wretches to a wretched end, and will lease out the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the proceeds at harvest time.”
Jesus said to them, “Have y’all never read in the Scriptures,
‘The stone which the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. This was from the Lord, and it is marvelous in our eyes’?+Psa 118:22-23“Therefore I tell y’all that the Empire of God will be taken away from y’all and will be given to an ethnic group producing its fruit. The one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces, and the one on whom it falls will be crushed.”
When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they understood that he was speaking about them. They were seeking a way to arrest him, but they were afraid of the crowd, because they considered him to be a prophet.