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, amongst those who are born of women there is not a greater prophet than Yochanan the Immerser, 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 immersed with Yochanan’s immersion.
30. But the Pharisees and the Torah scholars rejected the counsel of God, not being immersed by him themselves.
31. “To what then should I compare 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 Yochanan the Immerser 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, brought an alabaster jar of ointment.