GOP Gospel: Tax Collectors and Sinners

Day 26 of my Lent project. For background, please read this.

A reading from the Gospel according to the GOP:

Word reached the Pharisees that Jesus was sitting and eating not only with his disciples but with many tax-collectors and sinners. When the Pharisees heard this, they said to his disciples, "Why does your teacher eat with tax-collectors and sinners?" But Jesus heard them and said, "These are slanders from a jealous crowd, who cannot bear my righteousness and so seek to scandalize me. I know well what the Father says is clean and unclean, and would not lower myself to the company of such undesirables, lest I be influenced by them, or be seen to condone them. The Father has sent me to those he loves, to reinforce their righteousness and encourage them in a world set against them, and not to the sinners who persecute them."

( Matthew 9:10-13 )