Leavetaking of the Nativity

Moses indeed was faithful in all his house as a servant, for a testimony of those things which were afterward to be spoken, ⁶but Christ is faithful as a Son over his house. We are his house, if we hold fast our confidence and the glorying of our hope firm to the end. ⁷Therefore, even as the Holy Spirit says, “Today if you will hear his voice, ⁸don’t harden your hearts as in the rebellion, in the day of the trial in the wilderness, ⁹where your fathers tested me and tried me, and saw my deeds for forty years. ¹⁰Therefore I was displeased with that generation, and said, ‘They always err in their heart, but they didn’t know my ways.’ ¹¹As I swore in my wrath, ‘They will not enter into my rest.’” ¹⁷With whom was he displeased forty years? Wasn’t it with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness? ¹⁸To whom did he swear that they wouldn’t enter into his rest, but to those who were disobedient? ¹⁹We see that they weren’t able to enter in because of unbelief.

They sent some of the Pharisees and the Herodians to him, that they might trap him with words. ¹⁴When they had come, they asked him, “Teacher, we know that you are honest, and don’t defer to anyone; for you aren’t partial to anyone, but truly teach the way of God. Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?

¹⁵Shall we give, or shall we not give?” But he, knowing their hypocrisy, said to them, “Why do you test me? Bring me a denarius, that I may see it.”

¹⁶They brought it. He said to them, “Whose is this image and inscription?” They said to him, “Caesar’s.”

¹⁷Jesus answered them, “Give to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” They marveled greatly at him.