Matthew 9:14-17

New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

The Question about Fasting

¹⁴ Then the disciples of John came to him, saying, “Why do we and the Pharisees fast often,^[a] but your disciples do not fast?”^{(A) 15} And Jesus said to them, “The wedding attendants cannot mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them, can they? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast.^{(B) 16} No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old cloak, for the patch pulls away from the cloak, and a worse tear is made. ¹⁷ Neither is new wine put into old wineskins; otherwise, the skins burst, and the wine is spilled, and the skins are ruined, but new wine is put into fresh wineskins, and so both are preserved.”