20. When the men had come to him, they said, “Yochanan the Immerser has sent us to you, saying, ‘Are you he who comes, or should we look for another?’”
21. In that hour he cured many of diseases and plagues and evil spirits; and to many who were blind he gave sight.
22. Yeshua answered them, “Go and tell Yochanan the things which you have seen and heard: that the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them.
23. Blessed is he who finds no occasion for stumbling in me.”
24. When Yochanan’s messengers had departed, he began to tell the multitudes about Yochanan, “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 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.
38. Standing behind at his feet weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears, and she wiped them with the hair of her head, kissed his feet, and anointed them with the ointment.
39. Now when the Pharisee who had invited him saw it, he said to himself, “This man, if he were a prophet, would have perceived who and what kind of woman this is who touches him, that she is a sinner.”
40. Yeshua answered him, “Simon, I have something to tell you.” He said, “Rabbi, say on.”