27. This is he of whom it is written, “‘Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way before you.’
28. I tell you, among those born of women none is greater than John. Yet the one who is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he.”
29. (When all the people heard this, and the tax collectors too, they declared God just, having been baptized with the baptism of John,
30. but the Pharisees and the lawyers rejected the purpose of God for themselves, not having been baptized by him.)
31. “To what then shall I compare the people of this generation, and what are they like?
32. They are like children sitting in the marketplace and calling to one another, “‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we sang a dirge, and you did not weep.’
33. For John the Baptist has come eating no bread and drinking no wine, and you say, ‘He has a demon.’
34. The Son of Man has come eating and drinking, and you say, ‘Look at him! A glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’
35. Yet wisdom is justified by all her children.”
36. One of the Pharisees asked him to eat with him, and he went into the Pharisee’s house and reclined at the table.
37. And behold, a woman of the city, who was a sinner, when she learned that he was reclining at table in the Pharisee’s house, brought an alabaster flask of ointment,
38. and standing behind him at his feet, weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears and wiped them with the hair of her head and kissed his feet and anointed them with the ointment.
39. Now when the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what sort of woman this is who is touching him, for she is a sinner.”
40. And Jesus answering said to him, “Simon, I have something to say to you.” And he answered, “Say it, Teacher.”
41. “A certain moneylender had two debtors. One owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty.