Zacchaeus

19 ¹Jesus was going through the city of Jericho. ²In Jericho there was a man named Zacchaeus. He was a wealthy, very important tax collector.* ³He wanted to see who Jesus was. There were many other people that wanted to see Jesus too. Zacchaeus was too short to see above the people. ⁴So he ran to a place where he knew Jesus would come. Then Zacchaeus climbed a sycamore tree so he could see Jesus. ⁵When Jesus came to that place, Jesus looked up and saw Zacchaeus in the tree. Jesus said to him, "Zacchaeus, hurry! Come down! I must stay at your house today." ⁶Then Zacchaeus came down quickly. He was happy to have Jesus in his house. ⁷All the people saw this. They began to complain, "Look at the kind of man Jesus stays with. Zacchaeus is a sinner!" ⁸Zacchaeus said to the Lord (Jesus), "I want to do good. I will give half of my money to the poor. If I have cheated any person, I will pay that person back four times more!" ⁹Jesus said, "Today is the day for this family to be saved [from sin]. Yes, even this [tax collector] is one of God's chosen people*! ¹⁰The Son of Man* came to find lost people and save them."

Use the Things God Gives You

¹¹Jesus traveled closer to Jerusalem. Some of the people thought that God's kingdom would come soon. ¹²Jesus knew the people thought this, so he told them this story: "A very important man was preparing to go to a country far away to be made a king. Then the man planned to return home and rule his people. ¹³So he called ten of his servants together. He gave a bag of money* to each servant. The man said, 'Do business with this money until I come back.' ¹⁴But the people in the kingdom hated the man. So the people sent a group to follow the man to the other country. In the other country, this group said, 'We don't want that man to be our king!' ¹⁵"But the man became king. When he came home, he said, 'Call those servants that have my money. I want to know how much more money they earned with it.' ¹⁶The first servant came and said, 'Sir, I earned ten bags of money* with the one bag you gave me!' ¹⁷The king said to the servant, 'Fine! You are a good servant. I see that I can trust you with small things. So now I will let you rule over ten of my cities!' ¹⁸The second servant said, 'Sir, with your one bag of money I earned five bags!' ¹⁹The king said to this servant, 'You can rule over five cities!' ²⁰Then another servant came in. The servant said to the king, 'Sir, here is your bag of money. I wrapped it in a piece of cloth and hid it. ²¹I was afraid of you because you are a hard man. You even take money that you didn't earn and gather food that you didn't grow!' ²²Then the king said to the servant, 'You bad servant! I will use your own words to condemn you. You said that I am a hard man. You said that I even take money that I didn't earn and gather food that I didn't grow. ²³If that is true, you should have put my money in the bank. Then, when I came back, my money would have earned some interest.' ²⁴Then the king said to the men that were watching, 'Take the bag of money away from this servant and give it to the servant that earned ten bags of money.' ²⁵The men said to the king, 'But sir, that servant already has ten bags of money!' ²⁶The king said, 'The person that uses what he has will get more. But the person that does not use what he has will have everything taken away from him. ²⁷Now where are my enemies? Where are the people that did not want me to be king? Bring my enemies here and kill them. I will watch them die!'"

tax collector(s) Jews hired by the Romans to collect taxes. They often cheated, and the other Jews hated them. one of God's chosen people Literally, "a son of Abraham." Son of Man A name Jesus used for himself. In Dan. 7:13-14, this is the name for the Messiah, the one God chose to save his people. bag(s) of money One bag of money was a Greek "mina," enough to pay a person for working three months.