Matthew 9:14-17

Contemporary English Version

People Ask about Going without Eating

(Mark 2.18-22; Luke 5.33-39)

¹⁴Some followers of John the Baptist came and asked Jesus, “Why do we and the Pharisees often go without eating,^[a] while your disciples never do?”

¹⁵Jesus answered:

The friends of a bridegroom aren't sad while he is still with them. But the time will come when he will be taken from them. Then they will go without eating.

¹⁶No one uses a new piece of cloth to patch old clothes. The patch would shrink and tear a bigger hole.

¹⁷No one pours new wine into old wineskins. The wine would swell and burst the old skins.^[b] Then the wine would be lost, and the skins would be ruined. New wine must be put into new wineskins. Both the skins and the wine will then be safe.

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Footnotes

9.14 without eating: See the note at 4.2.
9.17 swell and burst the old skins: While the juice from grapes was becoming wine, it would swell and stretch the skins in which it had been stored. If the skins were old and stiff, they would burst.