2. In Jericho there was a man named Zacchaeus. He was a wealthy, very important tax collector.
3. He wanted to see who Jesus was. There were many others who wanted to see Jesus too. Zacchaeus was too short to see above the people.
4. So he ran to a place where he knew Jesus would come. Then he climbed a sycamore tree so he could see him.
5. When Jesus came to where Zacchaeus was, he looked up and saw him in the tree. Jesus said, “Zacchaeus, hurry! Come down! I must stay at your house today.”
6. Zacchaeus hurried and came down. He was happy to have Jesus in his house.
7. Everyone saw this. They began to complain, “Look at the kind of man Jesus is staying with. Zacchaeus is a sinner!”
8. Zacchaeus said to the Lord, “I want to do good. I will give half of my money to the poor. If I have cheated anyone, I will pay them back four times more.”
9. Jesus said, “Today is the day for this family to be saved from sin. Yes, even this tax collector is one of God’s chosen people.
10. The Son of Man came to find lost people and save them.”
11. As the crowd listened to what he was saying, Jesus went on to tell a story. He was now near Jerusalem and knew that the people thought it was almost time for God’s kingdom to come.
12. So he said, “A very important man was preparing to go to a country far away to be made a king. Then he planned to return home and rule his people.
13. So he called ten of his servants together. He gave a bag of money to each servant. He said, ‘Do business with this money until I come back.’
14. But the people in the kingdom hated the man. They sent a group to follow him to the other country. There they said, ‘We don’t want this man to be our king.’
15. “But the man was made king. When he came home, he said, ‘Call those servants who have my money. I want to know how much more money they earned with it.’
16. The first servant came and said, ‘Sir, I earned ten bags of money with the one bag you gave me.’
17. The king said to him, ‘That’s great! You are a good servant. I see that I can trust you with small things. So now I will let you rule over ten of my cities.’
18. “The second servant said, ‘Sir, with your one bag of money I earned five bags.’
19. The king said to this servant, ‘You can rule over five cities.’
20. “Then another servant came in and said to the king, ‘Sir, here is your bag of money. I wrapped it in a piece of cloth and hid it.