23. Blessed is he who finds no occasion for stumbling in me.”
24. When John’s messengers had departed, he began to tell the multitudes about John, “What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken by the wind?
25. But what did you go out to see? A man clothed in soft clothing? Behold, those who are gorgeously dressed, and live delicately, are in kings’ courts.
26. But what did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and much more than a prophet.
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. “For I tell you, among those who are born of women there is not a greater prophet than John the Baptizer, yet he who is least in God’s Kingdom is greater than he.”
29. When all the people and the tax collectors heard this, they declared God to be just, having been baptized with John’s baptism.
30. But the Pharisees and the lawyers rejected the counsel of God, not being baptized by him themselves.
31. “To what then will I liken the people of this generation? What are they like?
32. They are like children who sit in the marketplace, and call to one another, saying, ‘We piped to you, and you didn’t dance. We mourned, and you didn’t weep.’
33. For John the Baptizer came neither eating bread nor drinking wine, and you say, ‘He has a demon.’
34. The Son of Man has come eating and drinking, and you say, ‘Behold, a gluttonous man, and a drunkard; a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’
35. Wisdom is justified by all her children.”
36. One of the Pharisees invited him to eat with him. He entered into the Pharisee’s house, and sat at the table.
37. Behold, a woman in the city who was a sinner, when she knew that he was reclining in the Pharisee’s house, she brought an alabaster jar of ointment.