Matthew 9:13-15

J.B. Phillips New Testament

^10-13 Later, as Jesus was in the house sitting at the dinner-table, a good many tax-collectors and other disreputable people came on the scene and joined him and his disciples. The Pharisees noticed this and said to the disciples, “Why does your master have his meals with tax-collectors and sinners?” But Jesus heard this and replied, “It is not the fit and flourishing who need the doctor, but those who are ill! Suppose you go away and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice’. In any case I did not come to invite the ‘righteous’ but the ‘sinners’.”

He explains the joy and strength of the new order

¹⁴ Then John’s disciples approached him with the question, “Why is it that we and the Pharisees observe the fasts, but your disciples do nothing of the kind?”

¹⁵ “Can you expect wedding-guests to mourn while they have the bridegroom with them?” replied Jesus. “The day will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them—they will certainly fast then!”