24. After John's messengers had left, Jesus began to speak about him to the crowds: “When you went out to John in the desert, what did you expect to see? A blade of grass bending in the wind?
25. What did you go out to see? A man dressed up in fancy clothes? People who dress like that and live in luxury are found in palaces!
26. Tell me, what did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes indeed, but you saw much more than a prophet.
27. For John is the one of whom the scripture says: ‘God said, I will send my messenger ahead of you to open the way for you.’
28. I tell you,” Jesus added, “John is greater than anyone who has ever lived. But the one who is least in the Kingdom of God is greater than John.”
29. All the people heard him; they and especially the tax collectors were the ones who had obeyed God's righteous demands and had been baptized by John.
30. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law rejected God's purpose for themselves and refused to be baptized by John.
31. Jesus continued, “Now to what can I compare the people of this day? What are they like?
32. They are like children sitting in the market place. One group shouts to the other, ‘We played wedding music for you, but you wouldn't dance! We sang funeral songs, but you wouldn't cry!’
33. John the Baptist came, and he fasted and drank no wine, and you said, ‘He has a demon in him!’
34. The Son of Man came, and he ate and drank, and you said, ‘Look at this man! He is a glutton and a drinker, a friend of tax collectors and other outcasts!’
35. God's wisdom, however, is shown to be true by all who accept it.”
36. A Pharisee invited Jesus to have dinner with him, and Jesus went to his house and sat down to eat.
37. In that town was a woman who lived a sinful life. She heard that Jesus was eating in the Pharisee's house, so she brought an alabaster jar full of perfume
38. and stood behind Jesus, by his feet, crying and wetting his feet with her tears. Then she dried his feet with her hair, kissed them, and poured the perfume on them.
39. When the Pharisee saw this, he said to himself, “If this man really were a prophet, he would know who this woman is who is touching him; he would know what kind of sinful life she lives!”
40. Jesus spoke up and said to him, “Simon, I have something to tell you.”“Yes, Teacher,” he said, “tell me.”
41. “There were two men who owed money to a moneylender,” Jesus began. “One owed him 500 silver coins, and the other owed him fifty.