Matthew 19:30

¹⁶So the last will be first, and the first last. For many are called, but few are chosen.”

³⁰Behold, there are some who are last who will be first, and there are some who are first who will be last.”

³¹But many who are first will be last, and the last first.”

³¹Which of the two did the will of his father?” They said to him, “The first.” Jesus said to them, “Most certainly I tell you that the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering into God’s Kingdom before you.

³²For John came to you in the way of righteousness, and you didn’t believe him; but the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him. When you saw it, you didn’t even repent afterward, that you might believe him.

³⁰What shall we say then? That the Gentiles, who didn’t follow after righteousness, attained to righteousness, even the righteousness which is of faith; ³¹but Israel, following after a law of righteousness, didn’t arrive at the law of righteousness. ³²Why? Because they didn’t seek it by faith, but as it were by works of the law. They stumbled over the stumbling stone, ³³even as it is written, “Behold,^[+] I lay in Zion a stumbling stone and a rock of offense; and no one who believes in him will be disappointed.”

²⁰The law came in that the trespass might abound; but where sin abounded, grace abounded more exceedingly, ²¹that as sin reigned in death, even so grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

¹³But the tax collector, standing far away, wouldn’t even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his chest, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ ¹⁴I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

¹¹I tell you that many will come from the east and the west, and will sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the Kingdom of Heaven, ¹²but the children of the Kingdom will be thrown out into the outer darkness. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

²⁹When all the people and the tax collectors heard this, they declared God to be just, having been baptized with John’s baptism. ³⁰But the Pharisees and the lawyers rejected the counsel of God, not being baptized by him themselves.

¹Let’s fear therefore, lest perhaps anyone of you should seem to have come short of a promise of entering into his rest.