And after these things he went forth, and saw a publican, named Levi, sitting at the receipt of custom: and he said unto him, Follow me.
For the exposition, see the notes at Matthew 9:9-13.
Since this discourse is recorded by all the three first Evangelists immediately after their account of the Feast which Matthew made to his Lord, there can be no doubt that it was delivered on that occasion.
Mark introduces the subject thus (Mark 2:18): "And the disciples of John and of the Pharisees used to fast." These disciples of John, who seem not to have statedly followed Jesus, occupied a position intermediate between the Pharisaic life and that to which Jesus trained His own disciples; further advanced than the one, not so far advanced as the other. "And they come and say unto him" - or, according to our Evangelist, to whose narrative we now come, they brought their difficulty to Him through our Lord's own disciples.