Matthew 9:14

³³They said to him, “Why do John’s disciples often fast and pray, likewise also the disciples of the Pharisees, but yours eat and drink?”

³⁴He said to them, “Can you make the friends of the bridegroom fast while the bridegroom is with them? ³⁵But the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them. Then they will fast in those days.”

³⁶He also told a parable to them. “No one puts a piece from a new garment on an old garment, or else he will tear the new, and also the piece from the new will not match the old. ³⁷No one puts new wine into old wineskins, or else the new wine will burst the skins, and it will be spilled and the skins will be destroyed. ³⁸But new wine must be put into fresh wineskins, and both are preserved. ³⁹No man having drunk old wine immediately desires new, for he says, ‘The old is better.’”

¹⁸John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting, and they came and asked him, “Why do John’s disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples don’t fast?”

¹⁹Jesus said to them, “Can the groomsmen fast while the bridegroom is with them? As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they can’t fast. ²⁰But the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast in that day. ²¹No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, or else the patch shrinks and the new tears away from the old, and a worse hole is made. ²²No one puts new wine into old wineskins; or else the new wine will burst the skins, and the wine pours out, and the skins will be destroyed; but they put new wine into fresh wineskins.”

¹⁶“Moreover when you fast, don’t be like the hypocrites, with sad faces. For they disfigure their faces that they may be seen by men to be fasting. Most certainly I tell you, they have received their reward.

¹⁸For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon.’ ¹⁹The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Behold, a gluttonous man and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ But wisdom is justified by her children.”

⁹He also spoke this parable to certain people who were convinced of their own righteousness, and who despised all others: ¹⁰“Two men went up into the temple to pray; one was a Pharisee, and the other was a tax collector. ¹¹The Pharisee stood and prayed by himself like this: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like the rest of men: extortionists, unrighteous, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. ¹²I fast twice a week. I give tithes of all that I get.’

²⁵Therefore a dispute arose on the part of John’s disciples with some Jews about purification.

¹Therefore when the Lord knew that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John

⁶Many men claim to be men of unfailing love, but who can find a faithful man?

²Now when John heard in the prison the works of Christ, he sent two of his disciples