1 At that time Jesus went through the grain fields on a Sabbath. His disciples were hungry, and they began to pick heads of wheat and eat them.
2 But when the Pharisees saw this they said to him, “Look, your disciples are doing what is against the law to do on the Sabbath.”
3 He said to them, “Haven’t you read what David did when he and his companions were hungry –
4 how he entered the house of God and they ate the sacred bread, which was against the law for him or his companions to eat, but only for the priests?
5 Or have you not read in the law that the priests in the temple desecrate the Sabbath and yet are not guilty?
6 I tell you that something greater than the temple is here.
7 If you had known what this means: ‘I want mercy and not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the innocent.