Tax collectors ¹  also came to be baptized, and they said to him, “Teacher, what should we do?”

Now all the tax collectors ¹  and sinners were coming ²  to hear him.

(Now ¹  all the people who heard this, even the tax collectors, ²  acknowledged ³  God’s justice, because they had been baptized ⁴  with John’s baptism.

“Two men went up ¹  to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee ²  and the other a tax collector. ³ 

After ¹  this, Jesus ²  went out and saw a tax collector ³  named Levi ⁴  sitting at the tax booth. ⁵  “Follow me,” ⁶  he said to him.

Then ¹  Levi gave a great banquet ²  in his house for Jesus, ³  and there was a large crowd of tax collectors and others sitting ⁴  at the table with them.

But ¹  the Pharisees ²  and their experts in the law ³  complained ⁴  to his disciples, saying, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?” ⁵ 

The Son of Man has come eating and drinking, and you say, ‘Look at him, ¹  a glutton and a drunk, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ ² 

The Pharisee stood and prayed about himself like this: ¹  ‘God, I thank ²  you that I am not like other people: ³  extortionists, ⁴  unrighteous people, ⁵  adulterers – or even like this tax collector. ⁶ 

The tax collector, however, stood ¹  far off and would not even look up ²  to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, be merciful ³  to me, sinner that I am!’ ⁴