Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through. A man named Zacchaeus lived there. He was a chief tax collector and was wealthy. Tax collectors collected Roman taxes, and Zacchaeus held authority among those who did that work.
Zacchaeus wanted to see who Jesus was, but he could not see over the crowd because he was short. He ran ahead and climbed a sycamore-fig tree beside the route Jesus was taking.
Climbing placed him above the heads that had blocked his view. Though he was a wealthy chief collector, he accepted the exposed position among the branches for the opportunity to see Jesus. He waited there for Jesus to pass below.
When Jesus came to that place, he looked up and called Zacchaeus by name. He told him to come down quickly, because he had to stay at Zacchaeus’s house that day. Zacchaeus came down at once and welcomed him gladly.
People saw this and complained that Jesus had gone in to stay with a sinner. Zacchaeus stood before the Lord and said that he would give half of his possessions to the poor. If he had taken anything from anyone unjustly, he said, he would repay it four times over.
He stood before the Lord and addressed what he possessed and what he might have taken from others. Half would go to the poor. Any person he had defrauded would receive four times the amount. His welcome of Jesus was followed by a stated change in how his wealth would be used.
Jesus said that salvation had come to that house that day, because Zacchaeus too was a son of Abraham. He said that the Son of Man had come to seek and to save the lost.