Mark 11

Mark 11 is the eleventh chapter of the Gospel of Mark in the New Testament of the Christian Bible, beginning Jesus' final "hectic" week, before his death as he arrives in Jerusalem for the coming Passover. It contains the stories of Jesus's entry into Jerusalem, his cursing of the fig tree, his conflict with the Temple money changers, and his argument with the chief priests and elders about his authority. Biblical commentator Christopher Tuckett notes that "the Passion narrative in Mark is usually adjudged to start at chapter 14, but there is a real sense in which it can be said to start ... at the start of chapter 11".

The original text was written in Koine Greek. This chapter is divided into 33 verses.

Some early manuscripts containing the text of this chapter are:

Verses 1–11 reflect the events commemorated by Christians on Palm Sunday. Verses 12–19 record actions of "the next day", and end that evening. Verses 20–33 commence early (Greek: πρωῒ, prói), the following morning. Tuckett argues that Mark has "very likely" compressed a series of events into a single week whereas it is more plausible to assume they took place over a longer period of time.

Jesus and his disciples approach Bethphage and Bethany, towns on the edge of Jerusalem. Bethany was about two miles (3.2 km) east of the city on the Mount of Olives. Zechariah 14:4 has the final messianic battle occurring on the Mount of Olives. Bethphage is Aramaic for house of unripe figs, perhaps Mark's foreshadowing of the story of the fig tree.

Jesus instructs two unnamed disciples to go ahead to the town and collect a colt, by which he almost assuredly means a young donkey, which he says will be tied up and has never been ridden, for him to ride. This is to fulfill Messianic prophecies, such as Zechariah 9:9, which is quoted in every Gospel except Mark. He instructs them that if anyone questions them they should say "The Lord has need of it and will send it back here immediately." Mark 11:3, where Mark uses a double entendre as the "Lord" is meant as the owner of the colt and Jesus. The two go and find the colt as Jesus had predicted and start to untie it and people standing nearby ask what they are up to and they tell them what Jesus told them to say and amazingly they leave them alone. Mark leaves the event seemingly showing Jesus's power of prediction, but it could be argued that the people already knew Jesus as this town was his base of operations over the next several days: according to Mark and the other Gospels, Jesus also had friends there including Lazarus, his sisters, and Simon the Leper.

They bring the colt back to Jesus and put their cloaks on it and Jesus rides it into Jerusalem and people lay their cloaks and tree branches before him, singing him praise as the Son of David and a line from Psalm 118:25–26:

The Textus Receptus repeats the words ἑν ὀνόματι Κυρίου (en onomati kuriou, "in the name of the Lord") in verse 10 as well as verse 9: