27. It is this man about whom it is written: ‘Behold, I am sending my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way before you.’
28. I tell you, there is no one greater among those born of women than John, but the one who is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he.
29. (And all the people, when they heard this—even the tax collectors—affirmed the righteousness of God, because they had been baptized with the baptism of John,
30. but the Pharisees and the legal experts rejected the purpose of God for themselves, because they had not 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 out to one another, who say, ‘We played the flute for you and you did not dance; we sang a lament and you did not weep.’
33. For John the Baptist has come not eating bread or drinking wine, and you say, ‘He has a demon!’
34. The Son of Man has come eating and drinking, and you say, ‘Behold, a man who is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’
35. And wisdom is vindicated by all her children.”
36. Now one of the Pharisees asked him to eat with him, and he entered into the house of the Pharisee and reclined at the table.
37. And behold, a woman in the town who was a sinner, when she learned that he was dining in the Pharisee’s house, brought an alabaster flask of perfumed oil,